Legacy of a Rainbow
by J.S.Clark
Summary: Iro, a name that only parents with a sense of humor would dare name him, is heading to Signal academy to improve his skills and learn new ones. Eventually hoping to join Beacon.(My first actual story, NaNoWriMo. Named as it is because i couldn't think of anything else...ane it is a pun...no idea on the rating. start with T and go from there.)
1. Prologue

**RWBY: Legacy of a Rainbow**

 _(RWBY is owned by Rooster Teeth and created by Mounty Oum. I own only the story, nothing else… Except maybe a few of my characters…)_

 _(Also, the beginning takes place two years before the end of season three, so a year before the show starts._ E _ventually it will catch up to at least the end of the third season, perhaps a little after. Most of this will not be the main story, but parts of it will be shown.)_

 **Prologue:**

A man was walking through the forest, heading towards a destination that only he knows. This man has chin-length dark brown hair with a hint of amber to it with the sun setting behind him. His eyes were a startling yellow-blue, and where they connected there was a faint shade of green. He has a slightly worried frown as he continues walking through the forest.

He fingers his weapon, holstered at his side underneath a dark yellow jacket. One would say that is a sign of nervousness, but when looking at a hunter, that word has almost no meaning. He continues walking until he comes upon a cottage, he subconsciously straightens, and fixes his dark green shirt, sliding a hand into his pocket of his earth brown pants, he pulls out a bar of chocolate. As he is walking back towards the door, something moves in the comer of his vision.

Years of huntsmen training took over, he dove to the side, dropping the chocolate bar from his right hand, and he reaches to grab his war ax while his left goes for a crystal in his pocket. He rolls and stands up facing the direction where the movement came from, arm back ready to throw his ax.

But there was nothing there.

He was no novice, he wasn't going to let his guard down just because he couldn't see what was there. He slowly turned, searching the undergrowth for any sign of what had moved. Finally making a full circuit, he started to slowly creep forward, light on his toes so that he can move when he needs to. When he is a couple of feet from a larger than normal tree, he sees a deer step out from behind. He clenches his fist but doesn't move. The deer sniffs the air, turning those large eyes on the stranger. It was a doe, he could tell that much, could be a mother from her size. The oddity were the eyes themselves. One was all black, whereas the other was all brown, you almost couldn't tell, due to how dark the brown eye was, but he could. Years of teaching his son to pay attention to the small details made it possible.

He then glanced at the tree from where it appeared from behind. He was a bit confused, but couldn't place why yet. He looked back at the doe, it had turned around and started to skip away. The hunter, still confused, lowered his weapon and turned back towards the house. He picked up the chocolate bar from the floor and was glad that he had asked for it to be wrapped when he got it.

The hunter walked back up to the solid oak door, sighed, and then opened the door. He was greeted by the wonderful smell of roasted meat, cooked vegetables, and freshly made bread. His eyes widened slightly at that last part, that was usually only for special occasions. He walked further into the house, and shut the door, he had let enough hot air out already. He took off his dark yellow jacket, and hung it from one of the hooks, next to a couple of his other ones. He finally steps out of the entryway and into the living room.

The living room has three doorways leading to and from it. There was one leading towards the kitchen on the left, straight across from him there was another doorway that led to a hallway. And the third is what he just exited from. In the center of the room, there was a mahogany table with four light tan oak chairs. There was a dark red couch sitting across from the TV on the wall next to the hallway door. Across from the kitchen, there was a crackling fire in the stone fireplace. Which had a picture of him, his son, and his wife, who just exited the kitchen.

She is about a foot shorter than he is, standing at five foot eight, she has shoulder length blonde hair, blue-green eyes, and is wearing a knee-length white dress with a bright red apron which she is wiping her hand on. She smiled as she looked up at him.

"Hello Rouge, back already?" She asked him, going in for a hug.

He smiled, accepting the hug, "Hey Mag, of course I'm back already. Who would want to miss out on your cooking?"

Mag's smile widened a bit more. His wife then took his hand and led him to the kitchen. He glanced around, as they entered. Noting the fridge against the opposite wall, with the black-gray stove to its right with a couple of pots resting on top, the cause of the delicious smells that filled the house. In the center of the room, is an island with a marble top. Which currently has the freshly made bread resting on top. The island contained drawers which held the silverware and cooking utensils, and a few other odds and ends.

Above the stove, there were cupboards, which contained the various spices and ingredients for cooking. On the other side of the fridge, is another marble counter top which held the coffee pot, toaster, and a microwave. Above this was another cupboard, which held the mugs, plates, bowls, and other dishes.

To the right, you have the sink, with a silver steel outlining, with a small gray marble counter-top that held the strainer, filled with recently washed dishes. To the left was a small window above a small maple-brown table with two chairs of the same material. On the table was a small basket of napkins in the center, and a small vase of white roses.

Mag lets go of Rouge's hand as she walked over to the island and pulled out a bread cutter to cut the bread. Rouge walked over to the fridge and pulled out the butter and set it next to the bread. Next he walked over to the cupboard above the microwave and pulled out two plates, he then walked back over to the small table in the room and set the plates down. Opening a drawer, he pulled out some silverware and set them next to the plates on a napkin. Rouge turned around just in time to see Mag finish cutting the bread. She then, after setting the bread knife down, walked over to the stove to check the contents of where the mouthwatering smell emanated from…

"Dinner is done. Mind bringing my plate over here?"

"Sure, I can do that," Rouge replied, picking up both plates. He walked over to the stove, and she started spooning on the meat and vegetables.

"So…" Mag started.

"So?"

Mag sighed, took a deep breath and asked; "How was the sendoff?"

Rouge sighed as well, "I gave him a piece of paper for directions, as well as a couple contacts should he be interested. I think he will do fine, I just… I don't know, he wasn't always one to be, well, social…."

"I know honey, which is why I asked him to at least try to make friends…"

"And since you asked him, he most likely will try, but the question is; how hard?"

"We know he is great at strategy, has the qualities to be a great fighter, and the mental stability to make the decisions. What I am truly worried about the most is his semblance… I mean, we trained him enough to be decent in a fight, no matter the circumstances, and we tried teaching him aura-"

"We?" she interrupted.

"Okay, you. But still... You get my point."

She deflates a bit at this, "Yeah, you're right… Maybe having two parents as trained huntsmen is a bad thing…."

"No, we did a great job raising him. The only thing is, will he use what he learned from us? Or will he try to forge his own path?"

During this talk, they had both already sat down at the table with their food and drinks, as well as a slice of bread. They began to eat shortly after, thinking of the conversation that had just taken place. Rouge ate with gusto, even went back for seconds. Mag ate slowly, contemplating something, as she took a sip from her cup they heard a snap outside. They both froze, Mag with a drink in hand, and Rouge with food halfway in his mouth. They both set what they were holding down slowly. Mag then got up and slowly crept towards her room, which is where her weapon is. Rouge stood and went to stand by the door, holding his ax and a crystal. Mag retrieved her weapon and then stood by the hallway, aiming at the door. Her weapon is a dust powered crossbow that detaches to form twin kama, sickle-like blades attached to handles of wood, with a string to swing them around.

She glanced at Rouge, and he nodded, tossing her a crystal. Years of working and living together made communication needless, they understood each other. Mag caught the crystal and slid it into the chamber on the back of her crossbow, powering the string to give the bolts that energy. Rouge pulled out another crystal from his pocket and looked towards the door. Both of them breathing very quietly, Rouge glanced at Mag just long enough to see her nod, he then reached towards the door, grabbing the handle. Rouge pulled the door open, with Mag ready to release her bolt.

Nobody was there, confused, Mag still had her weapon aimed at the doorway. Rouge then realized something. That tree! He hadn't ever seen that tree before, he glanced over and saw it still there. His eyes flicked to Mag who understood, they both tossed their weapons towards each other, catching the other's weapon. As soon as Rouge's hand touched the hilt he turned and, aiming at the tree, fired a bolt. As the string released the bolt, the explosive energy from the crystal empowering it, the bolt went through the tree! Exploding somewhere behind it, destroying the illusion.

The effect was instant, soldiers were everywhere! Quickly Rouge shut the door and, after switching weapons back with his wife, readied the house for a fight. Moving the couch to the door to slow down those trying to get in, he lowered the table on its side, placed the chairs at the windows to block or at least disrupt the vision of those looking in. He went into the kitchen and grabbed some of the knives and a pistol he kept in the kitchen, hidden in the island. He ran back at the sound of someone hitting the door. He dove behind the table, aiming his pistol at the door. His wife was on her scroll, talking to someone.

"This is Mahogany from team MCRY (Mercury) calling Atlas guard, we are under attack. We need help, please send what available units you have."

There was a response from the other end, Mag then replied with their coordinates and then hung up. The banging on the door getting louder, then it stopped. Mag picked up her crossbow and aimed it at the door as well. The sound of a chainsaw starting could be heard. They looked at each other with confused faces and started to get ready for combat. Rouge then cursed, he had forgotten the rest of the ammo in his room. He looked at Mag and said;

"I forgot the rest of the ammo."

Mag glanced back at him and said; "We'll be fine, we can make our room the fallback point. Now get ready, they're almost through."

Rouge glanced at the door, sure enough, the saw was almost done. Right when it was about to finish cutting, it stopped and pulled out. A second later the door blew off its hinges as someone charged it. Rouge fired the first shot, hitting the man in the skull, stopping him dead in his tracks. He then crumpled to the floor as more charged through the door. Mag fired a shot towards the group. The explosion killed the ones in the lead and knocked the rest of them back out the door.

Rouge then started firing his pistol with deadly precision, hitting the head or throat, wherever the armor was weakest. Men fell everywhere he aimed. He stopped to reload and Mag took his place, firing through the door at a group, killing most of them. Soon Rouge was back up, firing again, but he soon ran out of ammo. He then switched to the kitchen knives, he loved the fact that his wife had gotten him professional, balanced kitchen knives for his birthday. They came in handy now, throwing them at anyone who walked through the door.

He handed Mag another crystal, due to the first having disintegrated from use. This one was a lightning crystal, and every shot, whether lethal or not, soon became deadly, as the lightning shocked all those around whoever was hit.

Soon she ran out of bolts, and Rouge ran out of knives. So they fell back towards their bedroom with Rouge throwing a crystal through the door, which exploded, coating the room in flames. Rouge shut the door and bolted it, moving their dresser and end table to block the door. Mag risked a look outside and, seeing what looked like a small army, started chuckling, gaining the attention of her husband.

"What's so funny?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"The fact that they practically sent an army to take us out."

Rouge walked over and took a glance out the window, seeing it was true. He then started chuckling as well, which eventually turned into full blown laughter, which his wife joined in on.

The soldiers, having finally gotten past the flaming room, heard the laughter emanating from a door on the left. They were confused by this, then fear began to leak into their facade; Why were they laughing? That fear quickly turned to anger, and one of them took out a crystal of their own and, placing it on the door, backed away.

Rouge finally getting his breathing under control, looked at Mag with sad eyes. Mag met his gaze, the look they shared explained it all. They weren't good at goodbyes, and they weren't good at telling each other how much the other meant to them, that look did it for them. Rouge gave Mag a quick hug, then turned back towards the door. Mag went over to the closet and pulled out a teal ammo box, she quickly opened it and pocketed a few crystals and grabbed some of the bolts. She then brought the box over to Rouge who grabbed another couple crystals, one he added to his ax, powering it, and pocketed the rest. He then grabbed dust infused bullets for his pistol. He was crouched down over the box when the door exploded. Mag used her semblance and moved the debris with telekinesis. Rouge instantly loaded a clip into his gun and fired a couple rounds through the doorway.

He hit one soldier in the leg, the soldier fell to the ground where Rouge finished him off. As others began to charge through the door, Rouge and Mag kept firing round after round, bolt after bolt, until they were out.

Rouge then pulled out his war ax and charged the door himself, absorbing a crystal through his semblance, Rouge fired an energy blast towards the people coming through the door. He then set to work, hacking and slicing anywhere he found an opening. He pulled out a dagger from a sheath on his thigh and used that as well, stabbing, slashing, and just cutting down the enemy through sheer ferocity. They quickly got over their sudden hesitation of someone charging them and started attacking back. Rouge was a whirlwind of blades; blocking, slashing, and hacking his way through their opponents. Block a sword stroke, slice the owner's wrist with the dagger. Throw the dagger at another, pick up the dropped sword and continue.

He sustained numerous cuts, bruises, and scrapes, but his teammates didn't call him the berserker for nothing. He fired another energy blast but was then exhausted. The energy from the crystal ran out.

Mahogany, who had been following her husband and waiting for this to happen, instantly jumped in. Separating her crossbow, the two Kama were then twirling about in her hands, protecting her husband. They continued this way, fighting the enemy in the hallway where they could take on such a large number in two's or threes, switching out whenever the other tired.

They finally pushed back the flow of men back to their living room, only for them to split to show their leader. Or leaders...

One was a Faunas with blood-red hair with horns the color of that like the blackest of shadows. He was also wearing a tan-white mask, like most of the others around them, with red flame-like designs, which made him resemble a grim. Wearing a black jacket and pants, the black jacket having a dark red underside, he also wore a shirt under his jacket, the same color of his hair. On his left shoulder looked to be a white vine design that crept onto his back, where it formed behind a blood-red rose.

His partner was just as tall as him, with mint-green hair that hung down to just below her chin, with two strands reaching further down her back. She had chocolate colored skin and was wearing brown pants with a white trim and a green blouse that showed off her stomach. Her dark red eyes were taking in the two opponents.

The guy held up his sheathed sword, and said;

"Hello, warriors. You have killed over half my men, that is impressive." He looked them over, and added;

"Without taking much damage to your person, even more impressive. Therefore, if you surrender now, I will make your deaths quick and painless."

His partner sighed and rolled her eyes, she responded;

"You know they aren't going to surrender."

"Of course I know, but I respected them enough to still offer." He replied.

"That may be true, but you could still at least-"

She was interrupted by Rouge pulling out another crystal and absorbing it with a small flash while responding with:

"Yeah, I'm g'nna have to agree with the miss over there, we aren't going to surrender. So we suggest you pull out and leave us alone, before you regret it."

The man looked at Rouge with what appeared to be disbelief on his face, and a slight hint of amusement.

"'Pull out'? I don't think so buddy, you just killed members of the White Fang, you aren't getting out of this alive."

Rouge and Mag glanced around, sure enough, all the soldiers they killed wore a white shirt. The back covered with a red wolf's head with three red claw marks cutting diagonally behind. The symbol of the White Fang.

"Hmph, well look at that." Rouge glanced to his wife, "White Fang, you would have thought they would fight better…"

Mag smirked, nodding and prepared for what was going to happen next. Rouge turned back towards the two in charge and responded;

"Well, better get this over with, you being the leader and all, your time is important and we don't want to take too much of that time." He said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Wasting no more time, Rouge charged towards the group, releasing a blast of electricity, with his wife following after him swinging her kama.


	2. Chapter 1

A/N: For some reason, when I started reading fanfiction, it took me forever to realize what "A/N" meant... But anyway, half-sorry for not updating sooner. I just have to be in a mood to sit for a long period of time to edit the grammatical errors(even if there are not many, most of my chapters are about this length). Anyway, here we go. *insert voice actor of the radio spokesman from Legend of Korra* "Introducing, the main character of this weirdly named story-"

Chapter 1:

Iro stepped off the shuttle, pulling a piece of paper from his pocket as he set his bag down. Looking at the paper, he saw names and some vague directions. He had already memorized the names on the paper, the quick glance gave him enough information to know what direction to start heading. The directions were so vague. Iro smiled, his father was always a bit vague, even when teaching him something important.

Still smiling Iro picked up his bag and started walking towards the CCT. He could ask for directions there.

 _Maybe find a map..._ Iro thought to himself.

The CCT tower was quite easy to spot, easily one of the tallest buildings in the city, Vale was the name from what Iro remembered.

Iro became glad that he dressed the way he did, instead of wearing a heavy jacket or something. Iro dressed in a pair of blue carpenter jeans, with a pair of black hiking boots, his favorite kind of shoes other than combat boots. He was wearing a dark red shirt underneath a black unzipped jacket. His dark hickory-brown hair was cut short to keep it from blocking his hazel-blue eyes.

Picking his way around the city, Iro soon found himself standing in a park/courtyard of sorts in front of the tower. The courtyard had two pathways the bisected each other. One was heading into and away from the tower itself, where the other passed in front of the steps. One leading to the city and the other to a sort of college-like residence. The tall tower itself was silver in color, the kind of silver that only a well-polished sword could be compared to. The bottom third of the tower had two holographic banners on the front. One a green-teal color, the other was white.

Pulling out the directions again Iro found that they only gave him the information from a place called "Beacon", but surely that isn't the famous Beacon Academy, right?

Iro pondered this for a couple moments before shaking his head. His dad should have been more specific, he was here to attend Signal academy to get into Beacon, not from Beacon to Signal. Slightly irked that his father didn't actually come with so that he could introduce Iro to the city himself, instead of the half-baked directions. He sighed, then folded the paper up and stuck it back in his pocket.

Iro looked this was and that, trying to find out where to go. Finally, he just sighed and started walking in a direction. Taking the path leading away with the CCT Tower at his back. Iro walked for several blocks, stopping to ask directions once or twice, he eventually gave up after about an hour of this. The last person he asked told him it was in the opposite direction he had been walking.

So he decided to head back a little ways, to look anyway. When he didn't find anything, Iro sat down on a bench near a small park.

After sitting down, Iro sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. He decided to try one more time, so Iro got up and walked a few feet before asking a man with ivory-white hair and tan eyes with a shade of green in them.

The man was wearing a dark green three piece suit, with what looked like a light green scarf that was wrapped around his neck and tucked into his gold-buttoned vest. On the scarf, right below his clean-shaven chin, was a cross with what looked to be a small black gem, onyx, maybe? He was also wearing a pair of small, rounded sunglasses with an odd frame. The frame looked normal until it turned in towards the lenses, then the frames dropped down about half an inch on both sides before coming about halfway back up, which they dropped down again to level with the original bottom before heading back up to hold the lenses, which curved up and linked to each other. He was carrying a coffee mug in one hand and a cane in the other. It didn't look like an ordinary cane, but Iro wasn't too focused on it at the moment.

"Excuse me, sir." The man stopped walking and turned to look at this newcomer.

Raising an eyebrow, the man responded with;

"Yes?"

Iro looked at the slightly amused expression on the man's face before asking,

"I'm afraid I'm a bit lost, could you help me find Signal Academy please?"

The man took a short sip of his coffee, and, chuckling under his breath, told the young man.

"Why, it is right behind you sir. The building in the middle of the park."

Iro turned to look at what seemed like a high school building. Turning back to the man, Iro found that he was watching Iro with an intensity Iro found a bit disturbing.

"Thank you, sir." Iro finally managed to say.

"Not a problem. Now you should get going if you want to register before the semester starts in a couple days." With that, the kind gentlemen turned to take his leave.

"Thank you again, sir. Do you mind if I ask you your name?"

"Not at all, my name is Ozpin. Best get going now."

"Okay, thanks Mr. Ozpin." But Ozpin had already walked away.

Turning back towards the school, Iro started walking, thinking about what had just happened.

 _An odd name,_ Iro thought, _the only Ozpin that I have heard of is-_

Iro stopped dead in his tracks, the thought freezing him in place as he couldn't quite process what had just happened. He just met the head of Beacon Academy!

 _Of all the people I could have stopped..._ Iro sighed, wishing he could have spoken to the headmaster more. Then he was chucked back into reality as some guy bumped into him. Iro shook off his trance and continued heading towards the school.

Walking up to the door, Iro hears a shout from inside. His parents told him this was a school to help prepare him for Beacon, so he shouldn't be surprised if there were fights, as per the way combat class can occasionally be a "fight night" as his dad called it. Opening the door, Iro started to walk in when he saw something flying toward him out of the corner of his eye. Instantly Iro dropped into a crouch, letting go of his bag in his right hand, the flying object missing him by a mere couple inches, impaling itself in the door. Iro then rolled into the room hiding behind a nearby desk and glanced at the wall where his head would have been.

It was a sword impaled in the wall. Then he heard some cheering, confused Iro glanced overtop the desk, seeing a fight going on, but not at him. Two people were circling each other, one with a weapon, one without. Apparently the guy without a weapon was just disarmed by the one with a weapon. The guy with a weapon was standing around six-foot-five, with copper-brown hair and light skin. He was holding an open-flanged mace, useful for catching and disarming opponents, as just shown. The mace had what looked to be a red crystal in the center of the open flanges. The man was wearing a full set of dark-gray armor with a dark gold trim. On his breastplate was the symbol of an eagle, the same dark-gold color as the trim of his armor.

His opponent was a Faunus, a deer faunus at that, with ivory-colored antlers sticking up from the mop of his unruly light-brown hair which matched the color of his pants. Wearing just a brown breastplate and a pair of matching armbraces over his light green shirt, the faunus was clearly not as good a fighter as his opponent. Iro stood, seeing that the man was not going to stop at disarming his opponent, and grabbed the faunus' sword, pulling it out of the wall. Turning back toward the fight, which was crowded with spectators, Iro began to sprint forward, intending to stop the fight. As the man chased the faunus around, with the inner ring of spectators pushing the faunus back into the fight, not letting him escape, the man finally cornered the faunus at the wall.

Raising his mace, the look in the man's dark-blue eyes said that this wasn't a friendly fight, and he intended to do more than just knock the poor faunus out. Iro finally got to the edge of the fight as the mace reached it's peak and started coming down. Diving over the crowd Iro landed, rolling in front of the faunus, he stopped and raised the sword, effectively blocking the mace.

Everybody froze as the newcomer landed and interfered with the fight. Iro then stood, shoving his opponent away, before helping up the faunus. Keeping one eye on who he now realized was the instigator, Iro turned to the faunus.

"Are you all right?"

The faunus, staring at the face of his strange person who just interfered, stopping whatever the bully was just about to do, was at a loss for words. The faunus just nodded, with that Iro handed him back his sword and started helping him towards the door of the school.

"HEY!" Iro froze at hearing this one word, practically dripping with the anger from the person who said it. He turned towards the other man, placing the faunus behind his back, and stared at the scarlet face of the bully.

"Yes?" Iro responded with an innocent tone.

"What do you think you're doing?!"

Iro pretended to think about this for a moment, looking up and to the right a bit, tilting his head just enough to make him look like he was truly pondering the question. Looking back at the bully, as he now considered the man, he responded;

"Why I am taking this fellow out for ice-cream, what are you doing?"

His response seemed to dumbfound the bully for a moment, then, while staring bloody daggers at the faunus helper, the bully responded with;

"I was teaching that faunus a lesson."

"Oh?" Iro asked.

"Yeah, now unless you would like me to teach you the same lesson, I suggest you leave."

"Okay." Iro responded, to the confusion of almost everybody present, looking over at the faunus he was helping he said.

"Hey, what kind of ice-cream do you like?" As Iro slowly started walking towards the door with the faunus.

"And leave the faunus!" Iro turned back towards the bully at these words.

"Why? I told you I was taking him for ice-cream, and you just told me to leave, which is what I was already doing."

"Do you want to have a beating?"

"Well, no. I don't know anyone who intentionally wants a beating." Iro responded, this seemed to irritate the bully even more.

"That's it, you smart-mouthed punk, you asked for it." At these words, the bully started walking forward, swinging his mace in a circle.

Iro turned away from the bully for a moment, looking back at the faunus saying;

"I'll be right back, meet me outside, okay?"

The faunus nodded his head and quickly left the group, the spectators letting him pass as they saw a new fight was about to start. As soon as Iro saw him pass through the crowd, he felt the wind moving behind him.

Diving off to the side, Iro dodged the swipe the bully was trying to strike him with.

"Come on Cardin! You got this guy!" Iro heard someone from the crowd shout.

 _So that's his name,_ Iro thought to himself, _Cardin, like Cardinal._

Cardin spun back around to face his opponent, preparing for another swing Cardin charged forward, with his arm back for a downward strike. Iro, seeing this, darted forward to strike at him while his arm was raised. Not being able to block, Iro slammed his heel into Cardin's stomach with a well-timed side-kick, sending his opponent back a couple paces. Cardin just shrugged off the hit and stood back up to his full height. Iro's eyes widened seeing this.

 _He must have unlocked his aura! Darn it, I was hoping for this to be a quick fight. I have to come up with a new strategy now. I wasn't expecting an aura…. Darn aura….._

Iro quickly came up with a new plan of attack, due to his opponent having an aura, he can't go for an all-out frontal assault, he has to be smart about it… As Iro was thinking about this, Cardin had already been on the move again. Seeing his distracted opponent, Cardin swung with a shorter arc this time, so that he isn't as exposed as before.

Iro snapped back to reality just in time to avoid getting his arm broken. Jumping back, Iro barely dodged the short swings of Cardin, slowly forcing Iro to a wall. Seeing his destination, Iro quickly moved under his opponent's arm on his next swing, getting behind him. Seeing an opening, Iro then sent a few rapid punches towards Cardin's kidney. Cardin just turned and elbowed Iro in the jaw, knocking him back. Iro decided to finally get serious about this, shrugging off his backpack Iro dropped into one of the many stances his parents taught him for unarmed combat.

Cardin, seeing this, paused for a moment. His opponent was in a fighting stance with both knees slightly bent, left foot forward, arms raised in a close-fisted position with his left-hand forward as well. Cardin knew that this guy was fast, and pretty agile too, but he didn't have a weapon, or at least hadn't drawn it yet. Thinking quickly, Cardin decided to go with another frontal assault but chose that this time, he was going to try aiming for his opponent's gut instead of his head, hoping to paralyze his opponent for just long enough to crack his head against the wall.

Just as Cardin finished that train of thought, he charged Iro. Iro, thinking this another chance to slip behind Cardin's guard, slowly backed towards the wall, waiting for a chance to dive behind to put his own plan into effect. So Iro was not prepared for Cardin aiming for his chest instead, cracking Iro across the stomach, Cardin raised his mace again, instead of slamming Iro's head into the wall.

Just as the mace was coming down, Iro stood, ignoring the pain in his stomach, and grabbed Cardin's mace-wielding arm and hip-tossed him, slamming Cardin into the ground. The people around gasped as soon as Cardin hit the ground, to them, Cardin had been winning.

Still holding onto Cardin's arm, Iro plucked the mace from his hand while Cardin was still processing himself now being on the floor. Iro, letting go of Cardin, backed away while holding the mace. Cardin, coming back to his senses, stood, looking for his mace. Seeing it in the hands of Iro, he became enraged, but wisely didn't charge his opponent. Iro, staring at the anger in Cardin's eye, decided to get rid of the mace, throwing it out of the ring and towards the door. Cardin, seeing his mace get thrown away, got even angrier and charged Iro.

Seeing Cardin charge him, Iro rolled to his right, in the direction he threw the mace, effectively dodging Cardin. Getting back to his feet, Iro barely ducked in time to avoid Cardin's fist. Iro, while crouching, fired back a couple punches of his own at his opponent's gut. Cardin just glared at Iro, grabbing Iro's arm, he proceeded to drag him a couple feet to the wall, then threw Iro against it. Iro, using the wall as his rebound, twisted around and put his feet on the wall, which he then shoved off of while swinging his left elbow back towards Cardin's face.

There was a resounding _crack!_ as his elbow connected, telling Iro he made contact. Cardin backed up a little, feeling his nose broken. Reaching up, Cardin gingerly touched his nose, wincing at the pain. He then gripped his nose and reset it with a _pop_. Cardin then looked back at Iro as he charged towards Cardin, side-stepping the charge, Cardin grabbed the hem of Iro's shirt, then slammed Iro onto his back.

Hearing someone call his name, Cardin looked up to see someone toss him his mace. Grabbing his mace and raising it all in one motion, he stared down at the still dazed Iro. Snarling, Cardin brought his arm down. Iro, coming out of his daze, looked at the mace coming towards his face. In a blur of yellow and brown, Cardin was tackled the moment before his mace connected with Iro's face.

Iro sighed, thanking whatever god out there before looking in Cardin's direction. Standing over Cardin was a girl with long yellow-gold hair that cascaded down her back like a waterfall until it passed her waist. She then turned around at hearing me stand.

Her eyes, looking me over to make sure I was okay, were a lilac-purple color, she was wearing a light-brown short-sleeved leather jacket with a golden-brown trim that exposed her toned stomach, with a bright-yellow undershirt. She was also wearing black fingerless gloves that extended just a bit past her wrist. On her wrists were large yellow with black outline bracelets. She had black short-shorts under a leather skirt-like thing that was belted on and open in the front but lengthened in the back, curving from her left hip to her right, forming a point. On her left hip was a small satchel-like thing attached to the belt. The whole skirt was the same color as her jacket as well, with a piece of white-blue fabric on the underside, detached, but still following the same outline as her skirt. On the right side of the skirt, was a yellow flaming heart-like emblem, with a matching black one on the upper left-side of her yellow shirt. A kind of white fabric extended a bit from the skirt as well. She was wearing long, shin-high brown boots. She had on orange socks, the left-leg one was pulled up extending just above her knee, whereas the right leg's was pushed down. Right above the boots were bandanas, her right leg had an orange one when her left had a blue-purple one.

"You alright?"

It took a moment before Iro realized she spoke, then another moment to remember what she said. Finally, finding his voice, Iro responded;

"Yeah, Thanks."

"No problem, I'm Yang." She said, holding out her hand.

"Iro." He responded, shaking her hand.

"So." She stated.

"So."

"What are you doing here Iro?"

"I came to sign up here at Signal."

Yang smirked at this, the smirk slowly faded as she pondered something.

"How did you end up in a fight already?" She asked.

"Well, I kinda nearly got decapitated when walking through the door by a flying sword. Only to find out this guy Cardin here was in the middle of a fight with a faunus. I returned the faunus' sword, and when trying to take the guy out for ice-cream, Cardin here attacked, and well, you know the rest."

"Yeah, I caught the tail end of the fight, that was impressive."

Iro gave a mock bow at this,

"Thank you." He replied after standing back up. Gesturing to Cardin, who was just now getting up off the floor.

"What do we do with him?"

Yang was just about to respond when a loud, authoritative voice responded;

"Nothing!" The crowd parted, to let three adults through.

 _Finally,_ Iro thought, _teachers!_

The one on the left was a man, with bleach-blonde hair which curled around his ears, light-blue eyes, and a small goatee the same color as his hair. He wore an open dark-brown leather vest, which showed a tan button-up shirt with the bottom couple inches a dark-red color. On his right shoulder, he had a silver-metal shoulder-guard right about a brown tattoo that looked a lot like a heart, on his forearm he wore a leather arm brace with straps holding it to his arm, ending just before his black fingerless glove. On his left arm all that he had was a red bandanna tied around his bicep. He wore a pair of light-tan short that ended just below his knees, with a pair of white socks and combat boots to complete the appearance.

The man on the right was almost the polar opposite of the man on the left. Having long black hair that was slicked back with a few strands hanging in front of his face, giving him a bird-like appearance, his hair looked almost green in a way. He wore a tattered dark-red cape over a white and gray suit top, with gray being the front and with white being the sides of the suit top. The sleeves ended in dark-gray cuffs folded back about halfway up his forearm. He wore a pair slacks the same color as his cuffs, with black dress shoes to finish the look. He also had a large broadsword that was folded up and resting on his lower back.

The man in the lead, who must be in-charge, was actually a faunus. Having dark, ocean blue hair, long enough that it almost hid his amber eyes from view, he had what appeared to be white horns sticking up from his hair, whereas that one faunus that Iro saved earlier had horns like a deer, this man's was almost like bull horns. He wore a pair of dark-colored combat boots under a pair of golden-brown khakis. He wore a dark forest-green T-shirt under a light-brown jacket with a gold trim. He exuded this aura of danger and fierceness.

The three adults walked into the center of the crowd, the man with the auburn hair spun in a slow circle, looking at everybody before finally settling on Iro and Yang, above a still-grounded Cardin.

"All of you, get to class! Except for you three." He said, pointing at Iro, Yang, and Cardin. "You three are coming with me."

Turning back to his two compatriots,

"You two can go back to your classes."

They both made to leave, but not before they made eye-contact with Yang and just barely shaking their heads. Yang quickly turned red in the face and was about to say something when the leader gestured, looking back at the three of us, stopping her retort from making an appearance.

The crowd had quickly dispersed, apparently not wanting to deal with the wrath of the man in front of him. He just stared at us as we waited for Cardin to get up off the floor. The man noticed that neither of us tried to help Cardin up. Filing that information for a later date, he turned and, after Cardin was standing, gestured down the hall and started walking.

Yang, walking next to Iro with Cardin in front them, leans over to Iro and says in a soft voice;

"I think we're in trouble…." Then straightened back up and kept walking.

We were walking for a couple minutes, taking many turns and doors and stuff, Iro would have gotten lost if it wasn't for the others, and even then, the two other students seem to know this way, that can't be good…

 _This place is larger than it looks…._ Iro thought, as they finally came to a door that said 'Principal' on it. Iro thought the man was going to knock, but he didn't, he just walked through the door. Iro, after hesitating for a moment, followed the others inside.

Once inside, Iro took a quick look around the room. On the left was a cabinet, it was closed so he couldn't see what was in it. On the wall in front of the door was a window that looked out on what appeared to be a training ground behind the school. To the right was a couple shelves that held some trophies and a plaque or two, displaying the man's achievements. Directly in front of the door sat a large red oak wooden desk. On the desk were various things you would expect to be on a principal's desk; staplers, pencils, pens, paper, a couple erasers, there was even a computer on the right corner of it. Also on the desk sat a name-plate, stating the name:

 **Principal Mavi Taurus**

The man that led them here sat down behind the desk. Pulling out a piece of paper and a pencil, after typing a moment on his keyboard, he said;

"Alright, you guys can have a seat." All three of us sat, Yang and Cardin in the two chairs already in front of the desk, while Iro went and grabbed a chair that was sitting just outside and brought it in.

After we all sat down, he looked at each one of us in turn. Starting with Cardin, who shrank under his glare, then Yang, who wilted a little, but didn't shy away, staring right back at him, and finally settling on Iro. When looking at Iro, his face formed a frown, he then studied Iro intently, like he was trying to peer into the depth of his very being. When the principal spoke everyone in the room flinched, not necessarily out of fear, but at the sudden break in the awkward silence that had ensued.

"Who are you?" He asked, still studying Iro.

"My name is Iro Bleu, sir."

"Do you go to school here Iro?"

"No sir, th-" Iro started before he was interrupted.

"Then what are you doing here?" the principal asked.

Iro sighed a little before continuing; "I showed up here to see if I could join the school, sir. I was told you should still accepting applications?"

"Yes, but you should have come straight to my office, not get involved in a fight that was going on in the hall."

Iro thought for a moment, trying to figure out how to say it correctly. He just decided to get on with it.

"Sir, if you could let me explain-"

"No, not right now. I will deal with you in a moment, Cardin." At hearing his name, Cardin simultaneously sat up straight, as well as shrunk away from the man in front of him, almost as if he was afraid.

"Go back to your class, I will talk with you later." The principal stated. Cardin was both relieved, yet fearful. Relieved that he wouldn't be getting in trouble, at least not right at that moment, but fearful of what is to come later. So he quickly stood, bowed slightly to the man, and then left in a hurry, almost running out the door. After watching Cardin leave, he looked at Yang.

"Ms. Xiao Long, how many times must you pick a fight?" He asked with a sigh.

Yang, Iro could see, was barely holding her anger in at his words. Yang looked like she was about to explode, but before she could, Iro replied to the principal.

"She didn't." At this the principal looked over at Iro,

"What?" He asked, in a warning tone.

"She didn't pick a fight. If you will allow me to explain…"

Sighing the principal looked back at Yang, then said

"Fine, Ms. Xiao Long, please wait in the hall for your punishment."

Yang stood, and, after bowing slightly to the principal, walked out the door. Looking back at Iro, he stated;

"Alright, explain."

So Iro did, he told of the events that transpired from the moment he stepped off the shuttle to when he arrived at the school, he then proceeded to explain about how, as he was walking through the front door, he nearly got decapitated, and then continued explaining up to the point that the principal arrived.

"So that is what happened, and Yang had nothing to do with it." Iro finished.

The principle sat there, as he had the whole time, hardly moving, and paying complete attention to Iro since he started his story. The silence that followed was just borderline awkward and overwhelming. Finally, when Iro thought he could take no more, the principal spoke.

"Hmm, that is an interesting story there. You say you met Ozpin? But you couldn't have, yet you detailed him accurately… Cardin in a fight with a faunus? Yes, I know that fellow, constant target of Cardin's… Okay, I believe you. Could you please wait outside for me? And send Ms. Xiao Long in?"

Iro stood, nodding his head. He then turned towards the door, and, after walking out, motioned for Yang to enter. As Yang passed him, Iro gave her a slight nod. She gave a worried smile before entering the room. As the door closed, Iro went and sat down where Yang had been sitting, and waited. A couple minutes later, she came out again, with a sad look on her face, with the principal following right behind her. Iro quickly stood, and, after glancing at Yang, focused on the principal.

"Iro, I have decided to let you join my school. You are a bit behind in getting to know the place, when others arrived a while ago and had a week or two to explore and memorize this school, you only have a couple days. I have tasked Ms. Xiao Long here to show you around."

After saying that, he handed Iro a folder containing various sheets of papers. Glancing inside gave him an idea of what it was, which was confirmed by what the principal said next.

"Those are you school papers, class schedules, details on each class, and what you need to have for each class. I have also included a map in there, in case you ever need help and Ms. Xiao Long here is unavailable."

Iro, finally finding his voice, replied;

"Thank you, sir. For everything."

"Don't thank me yet. Because for the next two weeks, once you start your classes, you will be attending detention for being involved in a fight. I don't care if you were helping someone out, in fact, the only reason it is two weeks instead of longer is _because_ you were helping someone out. And Ms. Xiao Long here will be joining you."

Iro suddenly realized why Yang had been a bit upset when walking out the door now.

"Yes, sir." Iro replied. Cause what else can you say to that? Complain about already getting a shortened detention period? Yeah, no….

"You can go now, Ms. Xiao Long, you are relieved of the rest of today's classes to show Iro around." The principal stated, Yang perked up a little at that.

Turning back to me, he said,

"Well, Iro Bleu, welcome to Signal Academy. I am Principal Mavi Taurus, and I look forward to seeing how you handle this new challenge facing you." With that, he turned and walked back into his office, shutting the door behind him.

Yang turned to look at Iro, trying to figure out how to start their little, 'expedition' around the school.

Iro shifted uncomfortably, Yang had been staring at him for a couple minutes now, not relenting in that gaze, hardly even blinking. As Iro was trying to figure out what to say, an intercom went off, making them both jump.

"Please have Mr. Cardin Winchester report to the principal's office please. Again, Cardin Winchester to the principal's office."

Yang and Iro, who had been looking at the intercom while the voice was speaking. After they finished, Yang and Iro glanced at each other and silently decided to leave the area before Cardin gets there. Iro just gestured for Yang to lead the way, and followed her back down the maze of pathways, he felt slightly relieved when he saw daylight again.

Yang lead him out the door and into the courtyard. The courtyard was mostly just a place with open, grassed areas with some trees dotted around randomly, as well as walkways strewn about the yard. On the far left side, there was an area with stuffed dummies for training, as well as other random pieces of equipment for training that Iro will undoubtedly learn about later. Directly ahead of them, was an impression in the grass, filled with some sand and the occasional stone or two.

 _I wonder what that's for…._ Iro pondered.

On the right side, the way they were headed, was a couple sets of red-ish brown buildings. Yang gestured towards the buildings with her hand saying,

"These are the dormitories, the two on the left are the guy's buildings, whereas the right is, obviously, the girl's. I can bring you back here after the tour for you to get your room and meet your roommates."

Iro raised an eyebrow at that. Yang soon realized what she said and, after a moment of surprise, and a slight blush, just smiled at Iro and continued on with the tour. She then lead him over to the sand-filled impression.

"This," She said stopping in front of the area, "Is what we call, the gauntlet. For no other reason than it sounds cool. Well, not with no other reason…"

Iro looked at her, a confused expression on his face.

"This is where the teachers will eventually bring the occasional first, but mostly second and third-year students to learn their semblance. They decide when to bring you out depending on how far you get in your aura classes and if you can channel it and such. There are a few able to unlock their aura rather fast, but are unable to find their semblance. Like Cardin, he has his aura-"

"So I've noticed…" Iro mumbled under his breath. Yang just smirked at this before continuing on with her explanation.

"- but not his semblance. Those sessions are really grueling, for some you have to be threatened and in danger before you can activate your aura. For others it is more of a passive, or focused on, kind-of-thing, not one to be forced." Yang stopped, then looked at Iro, "You do know what aura is, right?" she asked.

Iro nodded, "I was given a brief, almost non-informative, explanation. It is the physical manifestation of our souls, giving us a kind of 'force-field' in a way. It can help us take damage for a short period of time, and can even heal minor cuts and wounds. There are some, who with training, can channel their aura to form semblances, or certain abilities, like telekinesis, and such."

Yang nodded in agreement, that was what most of them were taught. Then she giggled slightly and said,

"If that was 'almost non-informative,' then I would hate to hear what a, uh, 'full description' would be…"

Iro then started laughing, a true, full laugh at that. Yang soon joined in on the mirth. Iro suddenly had a thought.

"Yang?"

"Yeah?"

"The principal said something about how classes don't start for another couple days, right?"

"Right."

"So, then how are you excused from classes if they haven't even started yet?"

Yang pondered the question for a moment, trying to think of how best to explain it.

"For some of us," She started, "we are willing to join in on the older students who stay here year-round. Staying year-round gives them access to classes year-round. So those of us who get here early, we can join in on these classes, so that we can get used to it faster. But when you start, you start. So you are expected to attend classes, all of them, when you start. I have been going here for a year already, but I am already ahead of most second years, but I need to complete at least three years of schooling here before submitting my resume for Beacon."

Iro thought of that for a moment.

"Unless you are a special case of course." Yang added after a moment. "Now, let's get on with this tour and finish so I can show you around the school before the place floods with students after classes."

At that, she then led Iro to the final area off to the left of the school.

"And this, this is the training area. This is where you learn what weapons you like, what weapons to use, as well as base what weapons you create off of such weapons. You also learn hand-to-hand combat here. All huntsmen and huntresses learn how to use all weapons, but they mainly stick to the weapons they create."

"Wait. We get to create our own weapons?" Iro asked this question in disbelief.

Yang smiled. "Yep."

"When do we get to do that?" Iro asked with excitement.

"Oh, sometime near the end of your first year. It depends on how far you progress in the weapons training. The give you the time until the start of the second year to actually create your own weapon and such. Test it out, fix the kinks and all that stuff. Some people even start creating their weapon before such times, using their own free time to build and figure out how to use it."

"Did you already create your weapon?"

At this, Yang smirked at Iro. "Did I?" she asked sarcastically, "I'm wearing them."

Iro, confused, looked down at her waist, then looked to see if anything was sticking up from behind her back. He didn't think she was wearing any weapons… Then it hit him, her bracelets! He quickly looked at her wrists. Seeing that he finally found her out, Yang stepped back into a fighting stance, similar to what Iro was in earlier.

Her left leg was forward with both knees bent, she faced sideways, making herself less of a target. Her left arm was down, her hand hovering over her knee, with her right arm back and her wrist on her hip, ready to power punch someone. After landing in her stance, her bracelets activated almost on their own accord. Her bracelets shifted, part moving down to cover the top of her hand, extending a couple inches from her hand to form a point to punch people with. It also had what looked to be a gun barrel just slightly sticking out right over top of her first two knuckles on both hands. It had a rotating cylinder that cycled her shots after they fired. It was mainly yellow with some black lines her or there, giving it a cool look. Another part extended back along her forearm, ending just short of her elbow, protecting her arm and enabling her to block strikes.

This gave Iro an idea for his weapon, but it was just a piece, he will have to think more and develop it later. Yang smirked at the awed look on Iro's face, watching him gawk and admire her weapon.

 _He would get along well with Ruby…_ Yang thought to herself. She then shook her head to get rid of the thoughts, and she quickly realized that Iro had been talking to her. She tuned back in to hear him finish a question.

"….at kind of gun is it? Does it use a variety of ammo, or a specific kind?"

Yang soon pieced together what she thought he asked.

"It is a shotgun of sorts. It _can_ fire almost any kind of shotgun shell, but my favorite to use is high-explosive rounds. I occasionally use regular or incendiary rounds, but I just like using the high-explosive."

Iro nodded, seeing the use and was glad that she answered a couple questions of his. He will ask more later, if he remembers, but he is pretty sure he'll remember. It's not every day someone makes their own weapon, much less a pair of shotgun-gauntlets.

 _Those are pretty cool…._ Iro was broken out of his train of thought as Yang, who had stood back up when answering his questions, retracted her weapons, turning them back to bracelets.

"Mind if I show you around the school now? Try to get you at least somewhat partially familiar with the maze of twisting pathways and such…" Yang finished, secretly hoping Iro will say yes.

Iro shook his head, and Yang deflated slightly, but quickly hid it as Iro looked back at her and smiled, while responding. "Not at all, lead on oh great one." Saying the last part sarcastically.

Yang perked up, mentally kicking herself for her reaction. She smiled back and then entered the school building, in hopes of teaching him the secrets and inner workings of the maze.

Iro and Yang were walking out the school doors and over to the dorm buildings. Yang had just spent the last two hours trying to teach Iro how to navigate and direct himself around the school. Iro was just starting to grasp the concept, albeit only slightly, but felt confident enough that he could at least find his first few classes. His plan was to then ask someone for help in finding his next couple classes until he got them memorized.

Iro had grabbed his bags soon after they entered the school and had been carrying them around while Yang was attempting to teach him. When they got to the dorms, he set his bags down and pulled out the folder with all the information. Leafing through the pages Iro found a couple pages he will have to study later, like the layout of the school, his class schedule, and stuff like that, but for the moment, he was looking for what room he was supposed to be in.

Yang, after watching him looking through the pages, decided to head up to her room. Just about to head up, she took out her scroll to check the time and cursed, then said.

"Man, how much time did we spend on that tour? schools almost out!" Yang turned to Iro, who was still looking through his folder. "Hey, do you think you can find your room?"

Iro looked up at this, thinking briefly on it, and responded

"Yeah, I think I can find it."

"Cool, I need to be somewhere soon. See you later?"

Iro nodded, "Yeah, sure."

"Okay, bye!" At that, Yang took off, rushing towards the school. Iro, confused as to why she just took off, shrugged to himself and kept looking for his room number. He soon found it, room one seventeen. Iro just put his paper back in his bag and, after picking his bags up, headed into the building to find his room.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

Iro had just walked up three flights of this five-story building, looking for his room.

 _These buildings are larger than they look…_ Iro thought, just slightly.

Iro, finally getting to his door, set his bags down. He then pulled out his key card and swiped it near the door handle. An electronic click was heard, Iro then opened the door and walked in with his bags. Iro stopped on the threshold of the room and looked around.

The place was similar to his old house, with white walls and two doorways, not counting the doorway he was standing in. One led to a hall where three doors resided, on the right was the door to the mini-kitchen, complete with a stove, a small mini-fridge, and a couple cupboards hanging over the stove. On the left in the room he just walked into was a small table, about three feet wide and four long. It was a dark colored wood, mahogany perhaps? Directly in front was a couch and two chairs, surrounding a small glass coffee table. The chairs were recliners, and soft ones by the looks of them. The couch was a brown and red plaid color. Across from his current standing, by the doorway out, was the door to the hall.

Iro took a couple steps in and set his bags off to the side. Looking around again, Iro was just deciding to head for the hallway when he heard something move. Iro looked around quickly, then decided to just call out.

"Hello?" Iro heard more bumping, and maybe someone tripping over something? Before a door opened to let out the same faunus from earlier, the one from the fight.

"Hello," He responded, Iro was a bit confused at this, not expecting to have a room-mate, but just shrugged it off. The faunus from before had changed out of his armor and into a different set of clothes. He was now wearing a light-gray shirt over a pair of blue jeans and sneakers. The faunus walked over to Iro, and, holding out his hand introduced himself.

"My name is Branco, Branco Maroon."

Iro, shaking his hand, responded with his name.

"Iro Bleu."

Branco smiled. "Nice to finally put a name to the face. Thanks for saving me, earlier today…"

"No problem." Iro replied, "Does that happen often?"

Branco's smile died, fading from his face instantly. Then, with a scowl, he answered.

"More than anybody thinks, or understands. Cardin's mere presence at this school has dissuaded faunus from trying to make friends, or even actively participating in much of anything. He is just one to bully his way through school, faunus are mainly his targets, but he does bully others as well."

Iro shook his head, feeling a bit perturbed at hearing this.

"Well then, I just guess we are going to have to convince him otherwise." Iro said, an evil smile forming on his face.

Branco looked confused. "You can't do anything to him. You would get thrown from the school and other such things. It's not worth getting thrown out just to confront him prematurely."

Iro's smile just widened. "What are you talking about?" Iro asked. "I don't plan on doing anything. Eventually, Cardin is going to want revenge against me for that fight, right? Well, I plan on getting better, so that when it does happen, and in a more uh, public place, I can beat him in front of the whole school. That should do one of two things. One, make him so embarrassed that he won't bother anybody for a while, or two, show others that he can be beaten, and encourage them to train more to do so."

Branco, after thinking that over, soon joined Iro in his mirth, smiling widely.

"Well then, let me show you to your room…"

Iro was sitting at a desk in his room, the third door in the hallway. The first was the bathroom, with the second being Branco's room. Iro's room had just the bare necessities, for the moment.

It had white walls, like the rest of the dorm, with a three-paned window across from the light-brown door. It had a small twin mattress bed on the left of the window, and a writing desk with a chair, which is where he is sitting, in the corner on the right. To the immediate left of the door, at the foot of the bed, is a wooden dresser for clothes. There was an end table with a lamp next to the bed, and to the right of the door was a closet.

Iro had finished unpacking and was trying to write a letter to his parents, detailing how his first day went, but each time he tried, it seemed that it wasn't good enough for them, and met the small garbage can that is right next to the desk. Eventually he just gave up, deciding to write more about it later. He looked the clock that he brought with him, which was sitting on the end-table, and saw that it was half-past six.

Iro, deciding that it was a good idea for dinner, got up and walked out of his room and headed towards the door. Branco saw Iro walking towards the door and, checking the time himself, decided to accompany him.

Iro got to the door and opened it, seeing someone standing there, startled him slightly, but he did his best not to show it. Iro, who was staring at Yang, wondered why she was there. Iro was just getting ready to ask his question when Yang answered them first.

"So… I figured that since you are new here, that I should show you around town as well. If you wish to accompany me that is…"

Iro just smiled, then nodded his head. Yang glanced over his shoulder, a questioning look on her face, Iro got the hint.

"Yang, this is Branco Maroon. Branco, this is Yang Xiao Long." Yang held out her hand, and Branco looked at it, then her, and shook it.

"I know who you are, Ms. Xiao Long, one of the only other people to oppose Cardin and not get beat to a pulp. Also one of the most dangerous and well-known fighters of the school, at present. With a sister who is getting to be another. You are also known for your anger issues, but can be funny and sociable when you want to be."

Iro's eyes widened. _Wow, that is one long sum up of who Yang is…._ Iro thought, _I didn't even know some of that, I probably would have learned of it eventually though... But that doesn't matter._

Yang's face went through a series of emotions during Branco's little speech. Her eyes widened at first, then some form of pride leaked into her eyes, at both the compliment for her fight abilities, as well as her sisters. Then anger, but ended in a blank face.

Iro, who had been thinking about what Branco had said, had noticed the entire thing but pretended not too. Iro, hoping for a distraction before Yang punched Branco, looked at Yang and asked her;

"So, where were we going to go first?" This, apparently, was a good option, and succeeded in distracting her enough for Iro to maneuver himself between the two and started leading Yang away.

Yang thought about it for a moment, then smiled widely.

"Well, I was thinking of going downtown first, show you a couple of the more popular malls and restaurants. Then maybe head uptown and show you the CCT building and the library as well as a couple of the weapon and armor shops that you can purchase parts from to make your own weapon, and just stuff like that. Sound good to you?"

Smiling, Iro nodded. "Sounds good to me." Glancing back over his shoulder at Branco, he shook his head slightly, but just enough for Branco to get the hint; Don't come. Branco frowned, but just nodded and then walked the other way.

Yang continued to lead him towards the front of the school, they walked mostly in silence. Yang talked a bit about her classes, but mostly that was just her complaining about a certain teacher or fellow student. Yang eventually stopped in front of the school, it looked like she was debating something. Iro heard her mumble something about a "bumblebee…." But then shook her head and led Iro to the bus stop.

Once Yang and Iro got to the bus stop, they waited for a bus that would take them uptown. Yang had decided to go to the weapon shops and stuff first, due to her saying she needed some more ammo and a couple extra parts for repairs.

While they were waiting, the same kind of awkward-ish silence on their walk continued here. Iro, quickly trying to think of something to break the silence, thought about what Branco said earlier.

"So, Yang. You have a sister?" Yang, who had also been trying to think of a topic for discussion, was rather grateful Iro had started one.

"Yep, her name is Ruby."

"Ruby? Hmm, what's she like?"

Yang was trying to figure out how to describe her when a thought occurred to her.

"Why do you want to know?" Yang's voice had a bit of an icy, aggressive edge. At the tone, Iro gently raised his hands and backed away a bit.

"Easy there Yang, just trying to make conversation. Besides, you never mentioned you had a sister, or that she would be attending the same school as us. What year is she?"

Yang sighed, realizing the reason of the conversation was not what she thought, and that the direction of the conversation was not going in her favor, she quickly relented and told him about her sister.

"Ruby is a hyperactive, ADHD kind of person. I added hyperactive to the ADHD because she is even more energized than your usually ADHD person. She has a love for weapons, and won't hesitate to have a long and in-depth conversation about them. Often choosing to look at and admire weapons than going out with friends. She usually talks rather fast, and I mean Dr. Oobleck fast. She is also just starting, like you, but is already a week into her schooling."

"So, are the classes based on age? Or just when you join?"

"A bit of both, leaning more towards just when you join. I am sixteen at the moment, and I joined just over a year ago. Ruby, at the moment, is about, what, fourteen? Yeah, fourteen at the moment. But she already has a slight head start in the school program….not that we have any choice…"

Yang said this last part under her breath, and Iro almost missed it.

"Why is that?" Iro asked.

"Why is what?"

"Why don't you guys really have a choice?"

Yang sighed again, glanced around real quick, then leaned forward towards Iro and said just above a whisper;

"Ruby and I have some family as teachers in the school."

Iro's eyes widened slightly, as he had a flashback to the end of the fight earlier that day, with the two men who accompanied the principal, and them slightly shaking their heads at Yang.

"It was those two men who were with the principal earlier, wasn't it?"

Yang, who hadn't planned on telling him who, though he would have figured out one specifically, sat up suddenly, as she had leaned back in her seat after her reveal.

"Wha- h-how-" Yang spluttered, trying to figure out how Iro had deduced it was them. Which also told him that he was right. The bus chose that exact time to pull up to the bus stop. Iro, along with a still slightly dumbfounded Yang, boarded the bus and headed uptown.

Yang and Iro stepped off the bus in the shopping district of uptown. They were surrounded by the bustling and constantly shifting crowd, with practically every building being a shop of some kind. There were even shops on the street hawking at other people, asking them to come check out their wares, or some even selling food. Iro even saw one man with a pickle cart, and from the look of some around him, he was insulting them, some even bought a couple pickles and the man left them to leave.

 _That is an interesting tactic of sale, but that would take a lot of guts, and you would have to have the strength to back it up…._ Iro thought to himself as he let Yang lead him through the throng of the crowd, weaving their way around clusters of talking people and trying to avoid running into people.

Yang eventually led Iro to a district with somewhat calmer tides of people. Iro glanced around at the shops, all different names on the signs, but one thing remained, most all of them were weapon shops. Yang pulled Iro to a nearby ammo shop and walked inside.

The clerk there, a short brunette wearing a black and blue suit, stood smiling at Yang.

"Ms. Xiao Long," The lady said, "Your usual?"

Yang nodded, with a small smirk.

"Your order will be ready shortly, we just got in a new shipment last night." The lady said, walking off.

Iro, who had been paying attention, soon got distracted by the various containers of ammo piled everywhere with mind-boggling precision. Iro was soon walking around, looking at random boxes of ammunition, just trying to figure out how they could have such a variety. He was even more dumbfounded when he got to a section, the biggest in the store, which was labeled "Dust-Infused Ammo."

Iro just stared at the sheer number of boxes in the area, some were labeled with specific intentions, and others were just labeled "lightning" or "incendiary". Iro knew there were a lot of different kinds of ammo, but to have each of them _dust infused! With each kind of dust!_ Iro just figured out how much firepower he was standing next to, and they would have more, much more, stored in the back...

Yang tapped Iro on the shoulder, making him flinch. From being so deep in thought, Iro hadn't noticed Yang standing next to him. She was now holding a bag with several boxes in it, with another, larger box, under her arm.

"Shall we go check out the weapon stores now?" Yang asked with a barely contained grin.

Iro just nodded, closing his mouth, which apparently had been hanging open.

They soon left that store and walked into a couple others, where most of them already knew Yang, and pretty soon Iro was helping her carry boxes. When he first tried to help she adamantly refused. Stating;

"I can do it myself, I have done it before." Which is where Iro responded with.

"Yes, and I am not saying you can't do it, but you can't expect me to just stand her and watch you carry all these boxes back to the bus, and from the bus to the dorms, now can you? Just let me help."

She finally relented, and they visited a couple more shops. Iro was trailing behind Yang a little when he suddenly stopped in front of one shop. He called out to Yang, who stopped when she heard Iro, and turned to see him enter a small shop. Yang sighed, but walked back and waited outside for him, occasionally glancing through the window. She read the sign that declared the shop to be called; "The Arme Shop".

 _No wonder this place doesn't get many visitors, look at the name!_ Yang thought to herself, slightly smiling.

Iro walked into the shop, looking around, trying to figure out why this shop caught his interest. The shop was small compared to some of the others, but not by much. The left wall was covered in screens detailing different weapons and armor, constantly changing into different schematics for others before it reverted back to the first after a couple minutes. The right wall had a bunch of parts hanging from it with a couple catalogs on a small table in front of it, detailing even more parts that could be ordered in. Directly in front of the door, along the back of the wall, were two doorways leading to who knows where. In front of that, with just enough room for a person to walk behind comfortably, was a large display case holding various pieces of armor and a couple completed weapons. There was a person behind there, reading one of the catalogs that were on top of the display case.

The man there was an older gentleman, with dark red hair holding streaks of gray, he had an orange-red beard with some dots of gray as well. He was mumbling to himself under his breath about some parts or something. He was wearing a dark-brown jacket with bright orange trim and shirt, the gentleman was also wearing a pair of black pants seen through the glass display case he was leaning on.

The gentleman looked up when the bell tolled as the door closed, and, seeing Iro, smiled and set down the magazine.

"Hello there, what can I do for you today?" The gentleman asked.

Iro, who had been looking for the source of his interest, snapped his gaze to the man, studying him. Iro then smiled back at the man, saying

"Well, I was walking past your shop when I had this sudden urge to look inside your shop."

The man nodded, like this happened frequently, and replied with;

"Well then, is there anything special you can think of?"

Iro paused for a moment while he thought about his still-forming idea of a weapon.

"Why yes, do you mind if I run an Idea past you for a weapon of mine? I plan on a couple other things as well, but I was looking for someone to help me with, someone who won't try to use this against me."

"Not at all, what's your idea?"

Iro glanced around, then took a couple steps towards the counter and relayed his idea to the man. He stood up straight when Iro was done talking and grabbed a nearby sketchpad and pencil, handing them to Iro, he asked;

"Can you draw it? I might be able to get you your parts if you want, but I will need you to draw everything about it for me."

Iro took the pad and pencil, nodding.

"Sure, but can I ask how I know you won't copy this and claim it as your own?"

The man looked hurt, then he walked back and into one of the rooms, coming back a couple minutes later holding a piece of paper and handed it to Iro. Looking at the paper, Iro soon discovered it to be a contract, and quickly read it over, then re-read it. Iro nodded to himself and signed, and then the other man signed. Iro then drew out his plan, finishing and cementing the thoughts into paper. He then flipped through the notepad, filling up eight pages of the pad with a lot of different designs and ideas. Soon after he handed it back to the man. The man's eyebrows rose as he looked at the drawings, each held incredible detail and calculations, the man looked at Iro with a question in his eyes.

"My father was a weapon specialist, and he loved trying to pick apart weapons. I went and took that, and developed it to be able to design weapons. I even made a few improvements to my families weapons." Iro said with a smile on his face at the memory.

The man nodded, and then walked over to a safe and put the notepad in there.

"We should have most of your parts in a month, but for some of the, er, _special_ parts, might take a bit longer, say three months? I should have all of your parts here by then. Plus a couple that I think might help. You should be able to make your weapon then."

Iro nodded in thanks and checked the clock on the right wall, above the parts. Cursing, Iro realized he had been in there for over a half hour. He walked out to find that Yang was sitting on a bench across from the door. He walked over and started apologizing to Yang. Her only response was;

"Well, what did you get?" Iro gave a slight smirk,

"I was just ordering some parts for a weapon idea. Sorry again for the wait."

Yang just shrugged, saying

"We best be getting back, we can stop for dinner on the way. I will show you downtown later because once I start showing you around downtown, you will probably be down there for a couple hours, so we will be behind curfew. Now, let's go get that dinner!" Yang then stood and walked off, with Iro following, picking up the bags he had left outside the shop.

They walked up to a place called: "A Simple Wok Noodle House" with a picture of two men in straw hats staring down at two bowls of noodles with a red background as the sign for it. It had four bar stools in front, with two cabinets full of glass bowls, off to the side of a door in the center that led back to a small kitchen. There was a man in a moss-green, long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled back. The man's face was a bit wrinkled, mostly laugh lines though, with dark gray hair that spiked off to the side and he is being bald on the top. With a red apron, the man was rather spritely for someone of his apparent age.

Yang had sat down and asked the man.

"Two regulars please." The man nodded and quickly disappeared behind the curtained doorway, and reappearing just as fast with two large bowls of steaming noodles and set them in front of Yang and Iro, who had sat down after Yang had ordered.

Iro paid for the meals, which Yang was slightly upset with him for, and they dug into the food. It was delicious, hot, steaming noodles with just a hint of herbs and a bit of a special sauce that Yang told him to try. It was one of the best meals he has had, outside of his mom's cooking of course, and they were both soon sitting back on the stools with full bellies. Iro and Yang thanked the man for his food and they picked up the bags and boxes and walked off.

Iro and Yang boarded the bus and rode back to school. Iro was standing because he gave someone else his seat. Yang had shaken her head at Iro when he gave his seat up, wondering why, but a bit too tired from carrying the boxes and bags to mind too much.

Iro walked Yang back to her room, stopping right outside and set the bags and boxes down. He then turned and helped Yang open the door but stayed outside, not wanting to break the rules of not entering the girl's dorm rooms. So, once Iro made sure Yang was good, he bid her goodnight and walked back to his dorm.

Iro walked in, after unlocking the door, and locked it behind him. He saw that there were no lights on, so he walked into his room, changed for bed, just a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt, and fell asleep after glancing at the clock. It was nine o' five, just barely made it in time for curfew. Iro quickly fell asleep, wondering what the new day would bring.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

Iro awoke to the smell of eggs and bacon, one of his favorite breakfasts. Iro quickly got up and walked out to the dining room. Iro walked in to see Branco making breakfast, and there were pancakes! Oh how Iro loved pancakes…

Iro hurriedly grabbed a plate and piled it high with pancakes and bacon, added a couple over easy eggs to the top, and added a boatload of syrup, almost overflowing and spilling it over the table. But Iro didn't give it a chance, he quickly devoured it. Branco just stared as Iro ate his stack in under three seconds. Then went and got another plate, and ate that too. Branco was staring in awe for so long his own pancakes had started to burn. Cursing, Branco scrapped the burnt pancakes into the trash and tried again. With a remark aimed at Iro saying.

"You know, I have only ever seen one other person eat pancakes like that, and that fast…." Iro looked up, and, after swallowing his mouthful of pancake covered syrup, asked;

"Who is that?"

Branco smiled, "Nora Valkyrie."

"Who?"

Branco's smile died, "You don't know who Nora Valkyrie is?"

"Uh, no." Iro stated like it should be obvious.

"Nora Valkyrie is a great fighter with bright red hair and wields a grenade launcher that changes into a giant hammer. She is a very destructive person with a super happy personality. And she isn't shy about her violent nature, in fact, you can hear her frequently talk about offering to break people's legs, specifically Cardin's. She is almost always paired with a man named Lie Ren, and you don't want to go against them in combat class. Though Nora's hand to hand skills could be better, with her hammer, she almost doesn't have an equal here at school."

Iro just took that in, and was completely paying attention as he had went back to his delicious pancakes…..

Branco sighed, realizing that he had lost Iro at some point but didn't want to explain it all again. Branco glanced at the clock, it was a quarter after seven, classes start at seven thirty. Branco then asked Iro, who had finished his pancakes and was just sitting there, relishing the slowly disappearing flavor.

"Are you going to go to classes today?"

Iro thought on this for a moment, before nodding, "Yeah, I can go to class today, what's first?"

Branco thought for a moment, "We have history first, at seven thirty-"

"Seven thirty! Why didn't you say so?! I have to go get ready." Iro then rushed to his room to get dressed. Branco, who was already dressed, just sat and ate his pancakes, which he had finished when talking about Nora. Iro was dressed and ready to go by the time Branco was done with his pancakes. Iro then walked over and grabbed his dishes, taking them to the sink, and began washing them. When he finished, Branco had finished cleaning up and grabbed his books, then led Iro to history class.

Iro followed Branco back through the twisting pathways of the school, some hallways seem a bit more familiar this time... But he can't dwell on that. Branco finally stopped somewhere in the east wing of the school, and entered a door on the left. They entered a room that looked almost like a lecture hall. Which Iro would soon find out that most all the classrooms are like that. They had dark green chairs with small sliding placements that folded down next to the chairs, each row of chairs was a little higher than the one before it, giving it that stair-like and lecture hall quality.

Most of the room was filled with students, he saw Yang sitting down near the front. Next to her was a girl with black hair and dark red tips, dressed in a matching black and dark-red combat skirt with black leggings. The girl had silver eyes that he could see even from this distance. She also was wearing black leather shin-high boots with silver buckles, she had a belt that had what looked to be sniper rifle bullets along her left side with a small pouch similar to Yang's on her right hip. She also had a black, long-sleeved blouse with silver buttons and buckles as well as a red hood held to her by two cross-like broches. Yang smiled when she saw Iro, but that smile faded slightly when she saw Branco next to him.

At the front of the class was a woman with a pixie cut of dark-purple hair, she had a pair of thick-rimmed glasses that matched her hair that framed a pair of aquamarine colored eyes. The woman also had on a long-sleeved shirt that faded from the aquamarine-blue at the top to the dark purple of her pants, with a variety of colors in-between them. Holstered at her hip was what looked to be a punch dagger, with four loops for the fingers and a handle that could possibly hold a crystal, the punch dagger had a six-inch blade sticking out the bottom, with four small knives sticking out from the finger loops. There was also what looked to be an attachment to it on the other hip, which looked to change it into a pistol, but he didn't know how, he will have to ask her about it sometime, Iro had thought.

She had a smile on her face as she beheld Branco and Iro.

"Ah, Just in time there Mr. Maroon, and who is this?"

Branco stepped forward and bowed slightly, when he stood he gestured to Iro saying;

"This is my new roommate, Iro Bleu. He was hoping to join in on the classes early, if that is alright with you, Mrs. Fialka?"

"Yes, quite alright with me. Nice to meet you Mr. Bleu, please take a seat. We are currently talking about the history of remnant, seeing as how this is history class after all, and we are talking about how it began as a review for the upcoming test in a couple days, which you don't have to worry about Mr. Bleu, nor does anyone else who is going to start this semester as their first year. The rest of you, good luck." With that, she stalked back off behind her desk and gathered some papers. Walking back in front she began a long explanation about how humans were created, and how we soon became attacked by the creatures which we know of as Grimm. Vile things, made of darkness, destruction, and pure evil.

"These creatures do not have a soul, so if you see one, do not expect mercy. They live on anger, hatred, and most powerful of all, fear. There are several that we do know of, like; the King Taijitsu, a giant snake that, if old enough, has two heads. Followed by Beowolves, large man-like wolves, they like to travel in packs and follow alphas, usually the longest living of the pack, as well as the most powerful. We also have Ursa, who are four-times the size of the normal man at least, they are large, bear-like creatures. You also have the Boarbatusk, creatures that resemble a boar, hence the name, they have long tusk that they use to catch swords and attack from a distance. These are just a few of them, we also have the Nevermore, Deathstalker, Creeps, Griffons, Goliaths and much, much more."

She also told of how we created Dust; a supernatural energy source that powers just about everything today. "There are many different uses and kinds of Dust. The reason it is called "Dust" is to remind us of where we came from, so that we never forget. Some of the uses are in weapons, others in energy, and much more. There are four basic types of Dust, which, if combined, can create other kinds of Dust types and properties. But we will get into that on a different day. We used this Dust to fight the creatures of Grimm and create what is now known as the "Four Kingdoms", Vale, which is where we are, Vacuo, Atlas, and Mistral. Each of these kingdoms continue to train their own huntsmen and huntresses to battle and protect us from the Grimm."

As she was about to continue, the bell rang, signaling the end of that class. "We will continue this tomorrow, I want you to read chapters one to seventeen by tomorrow." Mrs. Fialka shouted over the bustle of people moving in and out of the class.

Iro just followed Branco out and down the hall, as he was walking, Iro got tapped on the shoulder, Iro glanced over his shoulder to see Yang and the other girl he saw earlier. He turned and greeted Yang.

"Hey Yang, how's it going?"

"Eh, not too bad. By the way, this is my sister, Ruby." She said, gesturing to the girl next to her. Iro and Ruby studied each other, before Iro put out his hand, smiling and saying;

"Nice to meet you Ruby, my name's Iro." Ruby smiled back at this and shook Iro's hand while slightly giggling.

"Well, we have to get to weapons class, what's your next class?" Yang asked.

Iro pulled out his paper, and, after looking it over, replied;

"I have combat class, then physics. Followed by math and then weapons class."

"Ooh, combat class, one of my favorites. Ruby's favorite here is the weapons class." Ruby's eyes lit up at that, and Iro was trying to figure out why... Then he remembered Yang talking about how she was a weapon's fanatic.

"Yeah, I'll bet. With all the interesting and different weapons, I am hoping to get a good look at some of them." Ruby's eyes widened at Iro proclamation.

"You like weapons?" Ruby asked, Iro noticed that her voice still had a childish ring to it.

"Sure do, my dad was a weapons specialist, so he taught me quite a bit about weapons. I am fascinated by them, I love trying to figure out how they work…." Ruby was nodding when Iro had finished talking.

The bell rang then, startling the small group, and signaling the, that classes were going to start. So they parted with promises to talk later. Iro turned and found the Branco had disappeared, probably during his conversation with Yang. Luckily, Iro had his map on him, he looked at the closest door's number and then studied his map. If he ran, and didn't get lost, he might make it in time. So Iro took off, hoping he was going the right way.

Iro had gotten turned around a little, he eventually made it to the class. Upon walking in, he discovered a training room, with equipment lining the walls, ranging from large bags to small hand targets. There were even a couple fake knives and guns hanging on one wall. The floor was wooden, with mats piled in the far left corner. The walls were a light brown in color, with the wooden floors being a bright tan. There was already a group of people training, hand to hand combat from the looks of it. Standing a couple feet away from them was one of the men from the day before. The blonde man was wearing the same tan cargo shorts and combat boots, with a dark leather vest over a tan button-up shirt. With an arm brace on his right arm. He looked towards the door and saw Iro entering, and called a stop to the class for a moment.

"Ah, and you must be Iro Bleu." He said in a slightly angered and disappointed tone.

"Yes, sir." Iro responded. The man's eyebrows rose just ever so slightly at hearing manners come from this boy who got Yang in-trouble.

"Well, okay then. Mind explaining why you're late?"

"First-day sir, I got lost on my way here."

"Oh did you?" He asked sarcastically. "Well, if you wouldn't mind, I would like to borrow you for a demonstration." He said more like a statement than a question, but Iro still responded with;

"Sure, I can do that." Iro then set his bags off to the side with everyone else's and approached the man. The man held out his hand, saying;

"My name is Taiyang Xiao Long." Iro reached out to shake his hand, when Iro's hand touched Taiyang's, Taiyang quickly twisted Iro's wrist and had him on the ground in seconds.

"I am going to ask you to get out of this in a moment, and I want to see if you can, no punches or kicks, just manipulation. You versus me, how does that sound, Mr. Bleu?" He issued his challenge in a whisper, like it was just between them. Iro just turned his head to the man, smiled, and nodded his head in agreement. Taiyang sneered at Iro, thinking about trying to make him pay for getting Yang in-trouble. Taiyang, once he got his plan set, told Iro;

"Try to escape." Before Taiyang even finished his sentence Iro was out, having twisted his wrist even further in to get his opening to pull his arm out.

He was soon standing back up and facing Taiyang again. Taiyang felt righteous fury surge through his veins and he attacked Iro, trying for an armbar. He faked a punch towards Iro's face to get him to block, which Iro did, Taiyang then grabbed one of Iro's arms and pushed it towards Iro's chest then twisted it down and back around to the other side of Taiyang's body. Iro just went with it, and when Taiyang pulled his arm away from him, Iro somersaulted over and twisted Taiyang's wrist with his roll, causing him to let go. Taiyang was soon facing Iro again, Iro was getting nervous, he didn't know why his teacher wanted to get back at him, but it wasn't good.

Iro then remembered what Yang had said, about this man being related to her, and then it clicked. Taiyang was trying to get back at him for getting Yang in-trouble. Iro sighed, then noticed Taiyang glaring at him, he then snarled saying;

"True hand to hand combat now, everything's allowed." Iro tipped his head slightly, trying to figure out how to get this to work. Soon Iro was stumbling back away from Taiyang, as he threw punch after punch, Iro was finally backed up against the wall with Taiyang still coming at him, Iro froze, then his instincts kicked into overdrive. When Taiyang pulled his arm back to deliver another punch, Iro made his move. He placed a foot on the wall and launched off of it past Taiyang's other side, avoiding his right arm. Iro rolled and quickly stood up, he then attacked Taiyang's back. Taiyang spun, now realizing the situation he was in, and put his arms in a defensive position. Iro faked a left leg front kick towards Taiyang's stomach, and when he lowered an arm to block it, Iro threw a punch towards his face. Taiyang saw his mistake and used his other arm to block Iro's punch.

Taiyang them planted a foot in Iro's stomach and kicked him away. Iro dropped into a fighting stance, same as when he fought Cardin, and waited. Taiyang was studying him, trying to figure out what Iro can do through the stance he was in. Finally, Taiyang smiled evilly and gestured for Iro to continue. Iro, thinking it was a trap, rushed away from Taiyang, who thought Iro was running so he charged after him. Iro wasn't heading for the door though, he was heading for the wall next to it, which Taiyang didn't realize until it was too late. Iro reached the weapons wall and pulled off a couple knives and a sword. He then threw some of the knives towards Taiyang with deadly precision. Taiyang actually had to stop his charge to block and dodge some of the knives. Iro held onto one though, and switched it to his left hand, holding his sword in his right. Iro then lifted his arm to throw the knife, Taiyang dove off to the left and was now in the center of the room. Iro, taking advantage from Taiyang's dive, had also grabbed an ax off the wall.

Taiyang growled, this was getting out of control, his opponent was now armed. So Taiyang charged, not caring about anything else. He then blocked Iro's ax with his arm-brace and curved his body away to avoid the sword stroke, Taiyang then upercutted Iro's jaw, stunning him long enough for Taiyang to tackle Iro, who lost his weapons when he hit the ground. Taiyang was soon on top of him, with one hand holding Iro's right hand off to one side, with his other pulled back into a fist. Taiyang stared down into Iro's multicolored eyes, searching for something. He didn't find it, Taiyang then just growled out;

"Do you concede?" Iro smiled, and Taiyang felt something poke his front right ribs. Taiyang looked down to see the knife Iro had pretended to throw earlier, pressed into his side, hidden from everyone. Taiyang smiled down at Iro, Iro then felt something pressed against his head, glancing out of the corner of his eye, Iro could see one of the fake guns from the wall. Iro began to chuckle, which turned into a full on laugh, which he then dropped the knife and said;

"You win." Taiyang then let Iro stand, Taiyang was hardly breathing hard while Iro was sweating a bit and panting. They shook hands and Iro bowed slightly to Taiyang, now holding a deep respect for him. Taiyang just patted Iro on the back, laughing himself now, banishing his earlier attitude. Iro smiled, and they then continued on with the class until the bell rang. When everyone else was filing out, Iro approached Taiyang and asked;

"Mr. Xiao Long-"

"Please, call me Taiyang when we aren't in class." Taiyang interrupted, with a bit of mirth, the complete opposite of his attitude when they first met.

"Okay, Taiyang… I was wondering if you would be able to teach me, outside of class. You are one of the best fighters I have seen in hand to hand, so if you wouldn't mind… please?"

Taiyang thought on this for a moment, Yang could use another sparring partner, especially after what happened to the last one. At that thought Taiyang grimaced slightly, then looked at Iro, seeing the fire in his eyes… "Yeah, I can do that. I will give you a schedule tomorrow."

"Okay, thank you." Iro said with a sigh, he was slightly elated at his answer.

"Now run off to your next class, don't want you to be late again." Taiyang said with a smile.

"Okay, bye. Thanks again." Iro shouted, running out the door with his bag.

When Iro was gone, Taiyang sighed, and thought; how am I going to explain this to Yang... He was thinking about this until the next bell sounded and he was staring at his students.

Iro's day went just about the same as it started. The teachers excused him from being late because it was his first day. He took a liking to the physics class, because it made him think of how he would use physics while in a fight, like how some people used the force of a gunshot to propel them or their stacks forward to deliver more force, and just stuff like that. After physics there was lunch, nothing exciting happened there, Cardin was glaring at Iro, who was sitting by himself, across the cafeteria.

Math was the class after lunch and wasn't his strong suit. But part of being a weapon's specialist made his dad an expert on angles and opposing forces and exactly how much force to apply to someone's arm before it broke, things like that. Weapon's class was canceled for that day, and so, since it was Iro's last period, had the rest of the day off. So he began walking back towards his dorm.

Iro dropped his bags off in his room, seeing that Branco wasn't in, and was thinking of what to do when a thought came to him. Iro rushed back to his room and grabbed his schedule, he began looking for something, a class he hadn't seen on his curriculum. Aura classes, it wasn't on his schedule, anywhere. Iro was muttering to himself, trying to figure out why, when a thought struck him.

 _What if Aura classes are not available to first years?_

Iro thought about it, it made sense in a way, he'll have to ask Branco or someone about it. Iro decided to head over to the Aura area anyway, to see if he can catch the tail end of a class or something. Iro put his schedule back in his folder and walked out of his dorm, over to the Aura area. Nobody was there, but that didn't bother Iro, he occasionally likes to just sit and think to himself.

So he sat and just thought about the events that had happened that day. Iro was so lost in thought that he didn't notice that someone was standing next to him until they spoke.

"Hello, and what might you be doing here?" Iro was so startled that he fell to his side and was scrambling to stand up and find out who had spooked him so.

Iro looked at the woman who had scared him so, her wide smile that barely contained a laugh behind, which escaped in small bursts of giggles, were framed by bright fire-orange hair that curled around her face. Her hazel eyes were lit from within by her mirth, shining with a hidden spark. She was wearing a forest green t-shirt with an orange vest. She was also wearing a pair of dark-blue pants that ended on top of a pair of dark red boots. She was like a rainbow of colors come to life.

Iro finally schooled his features into a frame of calm, cool, and collectedness.

"My name is Iro, and you?" The lady finally managed to get her laughter under control enough to give her name.

"Myriad, Myriad Kleuren. Now, what are you doing over here?" She asked with a smile.

"Oh," Iro was trying to think of how to explain it, then just decide to spit it out. "I originally came to try and see if I could watch the Aura class or something, because I saw how it wasn't on my schedule and I was wondering why. When I saw that nobody was here I decided to just sit and listen to my thoughts and go over the day."

Myriad just stared at Iro, processing what he had said, then responded with.

"Oh." She thought for a bit more, and decided to tell the young man next to her. "Well, I am the teacher for the Aura classes, and you aren't allowed to start Aura classes until the second semester, unless you have had previous training with people and already have your Aura, like some of the descendants of previous huntsmen and huntresses."

Iro took all that in,

 _She looked a bit young to be a teacher, but then_...

Iro then slouched, just barely noticeable, you would have needed to be paying attention to notice Iro's shoulders drop ever so slightly. Which Myriad did notice.

"What's wrong?" Iro sighed at Myriad's question.

"My parents, both of them, were huntsmen. And they did teach me a bit of what they know. They even tried to teach me about Aura, but they couldn't ever help me unlock it. My dad's semblance was even something that people haven't seen before, it was rare. My mom's had telekinesis, it was a bit week though, and she could use dust to empower the object she was lifting with its properties, but it weakened her incredibly. They both had such amazing abilities, and they couldn't get me to unlock mine. It was kind of a sore spot for me. Maybe you will have better luck." Iro added the last part dryly.

"Maybe I will." She said lightly, glancing towards the training area. "Since there doesn't seem to be anybody else here at the moment, would you like to try and start? I won't tell anybody…" She said with a small smile.

Iro looked around himself, not really seeing many people heading this way he nodded in agreement. They walked out to the center of the Aura training area, once they got there, Myriad started asking seemingly random questions, which Iro answered, some with a sigh or two…

"What is your favorite color?"

"Blue" Myriad gave a small smirk, but quickly hid it before continuing on.

"Which side is your dominant side?"

"My right side."

Myriad kept asking questions until, finally, she stopped. People had started walking towards them. Myriad then proposed an option to Iro.

"Would you like to stay for class? Just sit along the side maybe, listening…"

Iro shrugged his shoulders, "Why not? I don't have much else to do tonight." He responded.

Iro walked off the sand and sat down near the edge. Others started arriving, some in packs, talking amongst themselves, others alone, and they all walked onto the sand, some taking off their shoes, but they all eventually got in even rows in front of Myriad.

Myriad nodded her head to the class, and they slightly bowed in turn. "Today," She started, "We are going to start off with explanations of Aura, and how it can be formed into semblances, as well as how to unlock it all by yourself. We will finish by practicing our Aura in mock battles, those whose answers I like the best will get to skip the first round."

One student raised his hand, Myriad nodded at him to go ahead.

"Aura, if concentrated upon, can be formed into a semblance, a special ability unique to the owner, although some may be similar to others. Everybody living creature has an Aura, except for the Grimm, who I would like to think are not actually living, hence no Aura. Everybody, with practice, could have a semblance, there are some that don't though." Myriad nodded, it was a good answer. But it missed a couple things,

"Okay, that was good, but what about unlocking your Aura, and eventually, your semblance?"

Another student raised their hand, a girl this time, another nod urged her on.

"Aura can be unlocked by everyone by themselves, through a hardship or emotional trauma, or it can happen on accident, the same with semblances. For some, however, they need help to unlock their Aura, but only those skilled, and powerful enough, can help someone unlock it. Some can unlock it through training, but this is very hard and stressful to do."

Myriad nodded, "Alright, you two get out of the first round, everyone else, pick your partners." And with that, the group descended into chaos for a short period of time, Myriad had walked over to Iro and asked him;

"Did you get that?"

Iro nodded, he understood most of it, enough to start anyway. Myriad looked back to see the students in groups, cheering each other on while other students practiced the more, combative side, to their semblances.

Iro stood and looked at Myriad, seeing a flicker of purple as the sun's last rays hit her.

"Thank you, I will think on this."

"Come back tomorrow, we can practice ourselves after my classes."

Iro nodded and started walking back to his dorm. Halfway there he ran into a really tired-looking and sweating Ruby, who had run up to Iro and was currently doubled over trying to catch her breath.

"Hi Ruby, what are you doing out and about?"

Ruby, still panting, responded in between breaths.

"I have…. been look….ing for you. I was sent….. by….. Mr. Xiao Long….. To get…. and remind you…. about your classes with him…."

Iro nodded, "Thanks Ruby, I had forgotten about that." Iro then started walking off towards the school. Ruby waited to catch her breath a little bit, before hurrying a bit to catch up to Iro.

"Wait up! I have to make sure you get there, Yang said you like to get lost when walking around school and that you actually got on Mr. Xiao Long's bad side because of getting to his class late and…." Iro soon couldn't keep track of what she was saying, she was speaking too fast, he caught the occasional word, but not enough to get what she was getting at. Eventually, which was a partial relief to Iro, they made it to the classroom, to which Ruby said;

"Well, this is where I leave you. If I am seen here they may try to get me to participate as well, and that is not something I want to look forward to…" She trailed off, "Okay then, bye!" and with that she turned around and sprinted down the hallway. Iro looked back towards the door and walked in.

Iro walked back to his dorm with more than a few bruises. He didn't even fight Yang tonight, she hadn't even shown up. Taiyang had told Iro that she had stuff to do during the nights and so it would just be them training after-school.

And that's how his next couple months of school went, starting off with history and slowly working his way to weapons class, who's substitute teacher was a skinny, blonde haired man with a pinched face and a high-pitched voice that annoys almost everybody, who also has a liking for yellow and orange clothes, and favored a staff to beat us from a distance when he actually faces us in a fight.

He was training everyone with a different weapon each week, sometimes throwing a random battle with one of the weapons that they already learned, to see how much we still remembered.

Iro would then go to his combat classes with Taiyang, which he would finish getting just a little better every night, or so he hopes. After which he would then go to the Aura training classes and match his physical exhaustion with mental exhaustion. Suffice it to say, Iro never had trouble falling asleep at least… He got up early in the morning to work on his school work before his classes if he fell asleep before doing it the night before.

Every Saturday after breakfast, Iro would then write a letter to his parents to tell them how the week had progressed and what happened. He had been hoping for a reply by now, but he knew that they were usually quite busy; "Being huntsmen after all is never boring." His mom once said.

One day he was the start of him having an absolutely awful week, most all the teachers were on edge and took it out on the students, which somehow they all seemed to target Iro, or so he thought. He couldn't take it anymore and finally snapped, except when he did, it was at one of the worst people to do it at.

Iro had gotten up that morning to find that he was late, he lost his books, and Branco was already rather ticked at him for no apparent reason. SO as Iro started to head for class, Iro forgot which one was first, he knew that history was rescheduled for later that day, and math had been canceled, so Iro was lost.

Iro was just so frustrated, finally he just sighed and decided to pick a random class, he was going to be late anyway. So he chose physics and started working his way there, only to find that they had a really big surprise test, and that they had moved to a new location because of it. Cursing, Iro started sprinting down the nearly empty hallways, trying to remember where the test room was, luckily he guessed right, but it wasn't good luck. He got to the room and opened it, to find that the test had already started, Iro let himself in and sat down at a desk, where one of the teacher's helpers made his way over and deposited the test and told Iro that he had about a half hour left.

Iro just sighed, set his mind into that determined, calm outlook, and began to work, pencil scribbling furiously. The test had been harder than most of the ones he had taken before, twenty-five hard minutes later, with his hand slightly cramping, Iro sat back and looked over his work, checking the answers. After that, Iro just sat there, massaging his hand and relieving the kinks until the teacher stood and told the class to stop.

One by one, row by row, the students got up and walked down to deliver their tests. Once Iro got there, the physics teacher: A man of grass-green hair and a blank looking face with a nose that seemed two sizes too big for his face, liking to wear a pair of khakis over leather dress shoes and a green polo shirt, same color as his hair. He also had sea-foam green eyes, which seemed confused as Iro handed the man the test.

"Mr. Bleu" He had a nasally kind of voice, "What are you doing here? This is a third-year test, and didn't you have weapons class right now?" Iro just looked at the man, confused, then his mind cleared and he remembered.

"Thank you Mr. Vert, and sorry for disturbing your class." Iro hurriedly said, bowing slightly, before spinning around and rushing for the door, leaving the test on the desk. Casually Mr. Vert bent down and picked up the test, leafing through it his eyes slowly started getting a bit wider, quickly he set the test down.

Iro was rushing through the halls, hoping to make it to the class still, if he remembered correctly, the class should be about two hours, and he only spent one on that test. Iro nearly slammed into the door, opening it, and rushed into the room, dropping his bag off near the door.

Iro ran into the room and saw movement in the corner of his eye, he dropped to his knees, his momentum carrying him underneath and past a sword stroke. Iro then rolled to his feet, turning when he stood and looked around the room as his back hit the wall. He saw other student's bodies littering the floor, with about twenty or so still standing. He saw the teacher off to one side of the room, leaning against his staff.

"Well, well, well. Mr. Bleu, so glad you could join us. We are currently having a free-for-all, last man, or woman, standing wins. And you just walked into the middle of it."

Iro looked around the room, on the far wall, next to the door, were the weapon racks, so he can't get a weapon from there. Taking quick glances around him on the floor he saw a couple knives, a mace, two swords, one a short sword the other an old foreign design, and a staff all within ten feet of him, but guarded by his opponents. Iro was facing a large number of opponents with a variety of weapons, the best weapon to go for, due to the numbers, was the staff, but there were a lot more people in that direction.

Iro decided what he was going to do as they started circling him. He could hear the teacher's voice ring out through the room.

"The first one to take Mr. Bleu down gets to take a short rest, knock him out and you win."

That certainly gave them the kick they needed, and they all charged Iro, but he wasn't there. Iro was running towards the staff. When people noticed this, they went to cut him off from it, thus giving Iro a chance towards what he really wanted. Iro was still running towards the staff when one of the larger boys in the class stepped in front of him, wielding a large double-handed hammer, which he swung overhand towards Iro's face.

Iro side-stepped the strike without losing too much momentum, hearing the crash as the Warhammer broke through the wooden floor, Iro turned sideways and planted his right heel, with all his momentum and force, into the man's gut, sending him flying into two others, knocking them all to the ground. Iro then used the rebounding force from his kick to launch towards the weapons he really wanted, the two swords, which he grabbed as he rolled past them, now standing in the middle of the room.

Wielding the short sword in his left hand and the foreign sword in his right, a katana, if Iro remembered correctly, Iro dropped into a sword stance his dad taught him; short sword in front and diagonal across his chest with the larger sword up, horizontal, just above his head.

Iro launched himself towards a small group of sword wielders, forgetting defense for the moment. Iro sliced the small sword down diagonally followed by the katana, effectively knocking his opponent's sword out of the way with the small sword, which he took advantage of with the larger sword, cracking it against the man's head. Bladed weapons are dull, but they still hurt. Iro then brought the katana and short sword up in a cross-block to block another opponent's sword, sweeping the short sword, and his opponent's, off to the side Iro then slammed the katana's hilt into the boy's face, breaking his nose.

 _My dad taught me how to protect myself, not how to just hold a sword, but to use it!_ Iro thought furiously, ignoring training and letting instinct take over, giving way to all those lessons his father had ingrained into him, hours of going over the same move, over and over. His dad had taught him that when facing superior numbers, either you play it smart, or you do it all based on instinct, and sense he was a bit drained mentally, instinct it is.

Iro side-stepped right to avoid a slice from an enemy behind him, he elbowed that boy in the face, then spun and struck him in the neck with his katana. Iro raised his short sword in a slanting angle to deflect another sword strike, kicking that girl in the gut, and sending her into the wall, knocking the wind out of her. The whole thing took only a couple minutes, but it felt like tens of minutes, and he took out four,

 _Out of how many?_ Iro's brain asked, but his warriors gut shut down his brain for the moment and got back into the fight. And just in time too, Iro leaned to the side as a mace barely missed his head, crashing into the wall and getting it stuck there. Iro glanced over his shoulder just long enough to plant a back kick in the person's solar plexus, dropping the guy to his knees. He then saw that he was cornered, enemies facing him on all sides, Iro just smiled and dropped into a defensive stance, which just seemed to irritate them more.

Three of them charged, the one in front with a sword and shield, the left with a two-handed battle axe, and the right with a pair of kama.

 _Like mom's…_ was Iro's stray thought that pierced his battle mindset, that just got him angry, very angry. One moment the three were charging him, the next they were on the ground, the one with the kama and the guy with the ax unconscious, the guy with the sword and shield got up again. Iro was impressed with the man, who then charged Iro again, expertly wielding his weapons.

Iro blocked his sword only to be struck in the chest with his shield, shoving him against the wall. Iro lost his grip on the short sword, which the man took advantage of, backing up just enough to swing his sword at Iro's now unprotected left side. Iro brought his other sword in front of his body to block the incoming sword, but wasn't fast enough to escape completely, as the sword thunked into his side, making him wince slightly, but that pain is to be focused on later. Iro then, using both hands on his katana, which gave a shorter reach but more speed and maneuverability, spun his sword around and struck the man's wrist, making him drop his sword. Iro then placed his feet on the wall and lunged against the shield-wielder, effectively shoving him back into the group.

More of them just looked at Iro, now holding one sword and smiled evilly, before they had been intimidated by how easily Iro took down at the small group, but now… Two of the group split off and approached cautiously, one dual-wielding a knife and a sword, holding them in a similar position as Iro had been a bit ago. The other was holding a pair of sai, a three-pronged knife with one, foot-long metal bar in the center, with two more splitting off horizontally from the hand-guard and then angling upwards, made for catching and trapping swords and staffs.

Iro was a bit more cautious around these two, they seemed as skilled as his last opponent, and they wielded weapons that would be rather deadly to a person wielding only one sword. Iro decided to stack the dual-wielder first, opening with a diagonal cut for the head with enough force behind it to be dangerous if not blocked. The man cross blocked like Iro did earlier, but Iro knew how to lead off of that and avoided it by retrieving his sword quickly and aimed slice after dangerous slice, with sickening speed and force behind them, his opponent could only retreat, which is when the other man stepped in.

Kicking Iro's sword strike away from his partner, the sai-wielder entered the fight now. Spinning with the force of the kick, Iro spun around with his sword swinging for his opponents head-

Only for it to be stopped in its tracks. The man had made an x-block as well, but by interlocking the side prongs to help evenly distribute the force, as well as reinforce his block.

 _Definitely trained._ Iro confirmed.

His opponent then locked Iro's sword in place and kicked towards Iro, who just blocked the kick with his own leg. The dual-wielder chose that specific time to re-enter, swinging his knife down towards Iro's hands. Iro just kicked the man's elbow, hyper-extending it and making him drop his knife. He then gripped his own sword with both hands and tried again. Iro couldn't do anything so he let go of his sword and leaped back, nearly tripping over a discarded battle-axe. Iro stumbled backward, and the crowd closed in on him further, with his two current opponents in front.

Iro looked around and found that people had been around and had been picking up the weapons on the floor and depositing them outside the circle, he now didn't really have any weapon, as his opponents were now standing above the battle-axe he just tripped over, and that was the only weapon in the circle.

The guy with a sword stepped forward again, and Iro put up his hands, determined to fight on. As the sword descended in a diagonal stroke, Iro stepped into the path of the blade, overlapping his opponent's hand with one of his own. Iro guided the strike to follow through, extending the man's arms again, placing his right arm at his elbows, and pulling on the hands holding the sword with his left Iro forced the man to let go, or risk him losing his arms. Iro then brought the sword back up and down onto the man's skull with a sickening _crack!_ Effectively knocking the man unconscious.

Iro, now holding a sword yet again, faced his opponents. Now his brain won through, configuring numbers and his own condition, Iro soon learned that there were too many for him to take on by himself in his current state. Iro just growled a challenge, not ready to give up. This apparently made a few people gather the courage to attack him again, and another person who had just been watching into taking action.

One man stepped forward to gain Iro's attention, wielding another battle-axe, the man started attacking Iro. Another with a sword had snuck up on Iro and raised his sword to strike Iro down. As the sword descended, Iro heard the whistle of the sword but knew he was too close and didn't have enough time to defend. Iro then heard a resounding _snap!_ Echo through the room. Then what appeared to be a black rope wound itself around the sword and pulled it off to the side, missing Iro entirely and burying itself into the floor.

Iro quickly kicked out his current opponent's knee and threw him to the ground. Iro then turned to see a girl holding a whip at her side slowly walk into the circle. The man who was wielding the sai backed away slowly to a spot next to his other friends.

The girl was short, probably about five-seven, and had dirty-blonde hair that was about shoulder length. She was wearing a forest-green vest over a dark purple long-sleeved shirt, with a pair of blue jeans and combat boots. She had on some armor, greaves to protect her shins that extended up just past her knee. She had on green and purple shoulder-guards that reached her elbows, which met up with arm braces of the same color, that ended at her wrists. She was holding a black whip down at her side, unraveled, and ready to use. Her storm-cloud gray eyes were scanning the crowd, they flicked to Iro for a moment, before they went back to the crowd. She slowly walked up next to Iro, who had his sword at his side, but still ready to defend himself with it should this girl attack him.

She slid her gaze over to Iro, who met her gaze with his, she nodded to him, which he returned. It was a silent mutual agreement, they would work together until either one was knocked out, or until it was just them standing.

Iro readied his sword, both hands on the hilt until he could grab another weapon, while she readied her whip in her right hand while pulling out a small dagger into her left hand.

The man wielding sais walked in front of the two of them, having retrieved the man with a shield that Iro had disarmed earlier, as well as a girl who wielded a trident. They readied themselves facing Iro and his new companion. Iro's companion glanced at Iro, who nodded, getting the hint. He would lead the first attack, and she would follow his lead.

Iro decided to go for the shield, but fainted towards the trident wielder, slicing towards her head. She raised her weapon to block, which Iro hadn't put much force behind, instead planting his foot in her gut and shoving her back, which she then tripped over that same battle-axe Iro had a bit before. Iro then attacked the shield-wielder, slicing over, sideways, diagonally, combination after combination, trying to get past his guard, and failing. He always blocked with his sword, shoved with his shield, or side-stepped and swung a counter for each one he tried, looking over at his companion, he saw that she was dealing with the trident girl again, after having dealt with the sai-wielder. Iro shoved his opponent away from him and whistled, a universal sign for those who have been trained, and charged towards the girl with the trident.

At the whistle, his companion dived off to the left, then hopped back to her feet and snapped her whip towards the shield-man, who raised his shield to block but didn't expect the whip to reach around the shield and still hit him. He then lowered his shield in shock and very nearly missed the slicing dagger heading towards his face, which he raised his sword to block, but was too slow. He stumbled backward, then got a kick to the side of his head, knocking him out. She then turned just in time to see Iro disarm his opponent and knock her unconscious as well.

The crowd had finally had enough with this and decided to just all come at once instead of sending the couple better fighters. Iro picked up a sword, now dual-wielding again, and decided to take the front, while his partner covered him. Iro's dad was a berserker, and even if Iro wasn't, not by blood anyway, Iro could still act like one, and act like one he did.

Iro was a whirlwind of blades, block here, counter there, whenever Iro saw an opening, he took it, placing a couple kicks to exposed ribs or even the occasional knee. Using his full range of motion, even head-butting one man who had both of his arms locked at his side, busting the man's nose.

Iro was in pure fight mode and was slowly obliterating the enemy, he was tiring though, his partner had been protecting his back, even taking out a few opponents that Iro couldn't see. Iro was soon on his last legs with five opponents left, the rest unconscious or sporting broken or dislocated limbs, putting them out of fighting.

Out of the five opponents, only two were guys, the rest were girls, and they were holding their weapons like the knew how to use them,

 _And well too._ Iro's mind mentioned.

The three girls were standing off to Iro's right, one holding a staff with a blade on one end, another was holding two knives with a couple others strapped to her waist, and the last was dual-wielding a hammer and an ax. An odd combo, but still dangerous nonetheless.

Iro looked to his left, seeing the two guys, also looking a bit tired, compared to the girls who looked fresh. One was holding twin hooked swords, made for catching and locking the opponent's weapon, or hooking an opponent to pull them off balance.

 _I hate those…_ Iro thought, wincing, then took in the other opponent. This one was holding a pair of tonfa, the handle attaching sideways to a club that just passed the elbow and fist, adding an extra inch. Iro surveyed the small group,

 _This is going to be really painful._ Iro sighed to himself, then chose the two guys, giving a slight move of his left hand to signal his partner, right before going after the two men, slashing both swords in at the heads and angling out towards their knees., forcing them to take a step back to avoid the blow. Iro was just turning to take on one opponent when his instincts told him to drop, and that he did, forgoing all attacks and dropped to his stomach, feeling the air move as something passed over his head.

Spinning on the ground, swords in hand, he forced his opponents to back away from him, he saw the girl with the bladed staff had joined in on his fight. Iro just smirked at her, angering her.

Iro then faked an attack towards the hooked-sword wielder, which he then spun out, slicing instead for the tonfa man, ignoring the girl altogether. Iro back-kicked the swordsman while striking at the other man, who calmly blocked his strike with his tonfa and struck Iro in the gut with a counter. Iro swayed back to avoid another strike, thus putting him in a position for the swordsman to strike, as well as the girl. The girl executed an overhead strike, swinging her bladed end down on Iro's exposed midriff while the swordsman swung for Iro's head, and then legs.

Iro leaned further back to avoid the head strike, then took the strike to the chest to avoid the attack on his legs. The blunted weapon digging into his stomach, and not for the first time had Iro thought: _By Oum, I wish I had my aura…._

Iro landed on the floor, losing one sword, and swiped at his opponents, forcing them back a pace. Iro then rolled back to his feet and turned to face his opponents, gripping both hands on his sword, Iro readied himself for a fight.

Blood roaring in his ears, Iro saw that none of his opponents were going to attack, so Iro decided to do so first, he raised his sword and charged. Iro got within a couple feet of them before feeling something slam into his head, he was unconscious before he hit the floor.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4:

Iro woke up in a bed with a killer headache. Looking around, Iro saw that he was in his room, which confused him. Then he saw a rush of memories, him getting up and rushing for class, only to find out he was in the wrong class, then running for weapons class, he remembered the fight, but not how it ended, he remembered charging someone and then getting hit in the head- which reminded him of his headache, just barely disguising his aching body due to the fight.

Iro sat up and, noting he was alone for the moment, pulled up his shirt to look at the damage. Now Iro doesn't bruise easily, and even then, when he does the pain is usually gone by the time the bruise finally decides to show he had one. So looking at his ribs and seeing a large yellow-green mark that stretched across most of his ribs and seeing a couple more in seemingly random spots ranging along his stomach and chest surprised him, especially when he went to check his ribs and found that it still hurt. A lot.

Iro put his shirt back down and checked his arms and legs, some bruising as well although not as bad as his ribs. Iro tried wiggling his toes and was glad that he could.

 _Means nothing is broken, now, time to get up and find out how I got here. Somebody had to of carried me, or dragged me…_ With that thought, Iro stood, swaying slightly as he felt blood rush his head and became a bit nauseous. Iro fell back onto the bed, and the nausea settled a bit.

 _Okay, try getting up again, but a bit slower this time._ So Iro tried again, and succeed in standing, with a bit of swaying. Iro took a step and, swaying considerably, almost fell.

 _So walk with help, got it._ Iro placed his hand on the wall and started walking again, leaning heavily on the wall. He made it to the door without falling, which he considered an achievement. Iro opened the door and practically fell through it, nearly slamming into his room-mate, Branco.

"Whoa there Iro, I am told you shouldn't be up yet!"

Iro just stood up, with the help of the wall, and looked at Branco.

"What do you mean; "shouldn't be up yet"? Who told you that? And how did I get back here?" Branco was still a bit in shock that Iro was up, so it took him a bit to even register Iro's rapidly fired questions.

"I mean, that Yang girl carried you back with the help of one other blonde girl that I haven't seen before. Yang told me that you had been knocked out, hard, and probably wouldn't wake up for another couple hours. She told me that when you did, you should stay in bed, and I was supposed to bring you some food and something to drink, and that orange juice might be a good choice. I was just coming to check up on you, it couldn't have been more than an hour ago that they brought you in."

Iro was trying to deal with the answers that Branco had given for his questions. Yang and a blonde girl?

 _Must have been my sparring partner…_ Iro thought, still struggling with standing, he was having a hard time thinking. Iro knew Branco was right about one thing at least, food. Iro started stumbling towards the kitchen, with Branco trailing behind him.

Slightly worried that Iro might fall, and wanting to be there to catch him, Branco stayed close enough to catch him, but not close enough to intrude on his bubble. Branco guided Iro to the table, and then made his way over to the cabinets to grab some pancake mix. Iro saw what Branco was grabbing and had a thought.

 _If he is going to make me pancakes, maybe I should get knocked out more often…_ But then Iro felt a searing pain flash through his head, _Or not…_

Iro waited for Branco to finish making the pancakes, who had also distributed the small container of orange juice and a glass in front of Iro while the pancakes were cooking. Iro had downed two glasses before deciding to lighten up, the orange juice helped greatly with his headache, which died down a bit after he got something in his system. Branco soon finished the pancakes, two large plate-fulls, and set them in front of Iro, before pulling off a couple for himself and depositing the syrup next to the plates.

Iro wasted no time before diving into the pancakes, devouring the first plate in record time, and was half-way through the second before someone knocked on the door. Iro stopped eating and looked at the door, Branco got up and gestured for Iro to continue eating.

"I'll get it." With that Branco walked to the door, and Iro went back to his pancakes, taking the last bite as Branco walked back in with Yang trailing behind him.

"You're up! Well, that's good. How are you feeling?" Yang asked when she saw Iro.

Iro swallowed his pancakes and replied to Yang with a small smile;

"Well, when I woke I felt like I decided to play chicken with a large truck, and lost. But now, I am feeling better, you?" Yang was chuckling at Iro's joke, and responded with;

"Well, It's not every day you get to carry someone back from weapons class. Which reminds me, you may have missed a bit of our physics and combat class, but if we hurry, we can still make it to history class, if you are up for it?"

Iro just nodded and stood up, this time without nausea, but still with a bit of swaying. And started walking back to his room.

"Oh," Yang shouted down the hall, "Mrs. Fialka said we don't need our books. Just to show up."

Iro was a bit puzzled, but just nodded and started walking back towards the door.

Soon Yang and Iro were entering a room requested just for tonight's class. The room was a bit like the weapons room, except no equipment lining the walls or wooden floor. In the center of the room stood Mrs. Fialka in her usual attire of blue fading to purple shirt and pants. Next to her stood a man that looked a lot like the one from the noodle shop him and Yang had visited, right down to the dark-red apron the man was wearing. Mrs. Fialka gestured to the man next to her,

"This is one of the many owners of dust shops that are scattered throughout Vale and the other kingdoms. Today you will learn about, and how to use, dust. Mr. Prach will take it from here."

The man nodded and stepped forward. "There are four major kinds of dust; Water, Fire, Earth or Rock, and Wind. These four kinds of Dust are combined in sometimes random ways to create the other forms of dust that you know; Ice, Lightning, Steam, and Gravity." Iro was focusing entirely on this man, he was rarely taught or told much about dust back at his house, seeing as how neither of his parents were experts.

"Dust can be both crystalline," He said as he lifted a blue crystal, "Or powder." He lifted his other hand, holding a small vial full of red dust. "Either way, it is still incredibly powerful and dangerous. If used right it could give you a great advantage in battle, used wrongly, well… There are reasons we don't just hand the dust out to anybody, there have been a few…incidents." He said, wincing slightly.

"Anyway, that is why I am here today, to show you the _right_ way of how to handle and store dust. As well as the best way to use it." At this, the whole room erupted into conversation. Once they quieted down, Mr. Prach continued.

"First, this is how you store it…"

Three hours later, everybody was streaming out of the classroom, excited about the new skill they learned. Iro was walking with Yang to head back to the cafeteria for dinner when he saw Mr. Prach putting the various dust crystals and powders back into their cases. Iro gestured Yang to continue on and walked over to Mr. Prach.

"Sir, I have a question I hope you might be able to help me with, if you have the time…"

Mr. Prach turned to look at Iro, studying him for a moment, before he smiled and said.

"Sure, what's your question?"

Iro was thinking about his weapons when he was walking over and was trying to figure it out for how he was going to ask, but he couldn't so he just spit it out.

"I was wondering if, since you could line clothing and armor with dust, if you could place dust crystals in say gauntlets and have the power of the dust travel to the weapon itself through the gauntlet? And if so, would interconnecting armor also be able to share the properties? So long as there isn't an interfering dust crystal active."

Mr. Prach was going over it in his head while watching Iro, who was slightly nervous at his answer.

"I suppose it is possible, but not probable. I would rather just have a dust chamber in the weapon itself and dealt with it from there. With also having a chamber to hold more dust crystals on your person so that you can switch them out if you want. For small weapons it might be possible, but for larger weapons like swords or axes, probably not. The armor is a more likely thing, but you would have to have a rather large chunk of crystal to do that, and even then, it wouldn't always work and the crystal would burn out rather quickly."

Iro was processing this information, his idea for his weapon could still work then, but not for everything else. Iro just nodded to himself, then focused once more on Mr. Prach.

"Thank you sir, I was hoping to have that answered before I tried building it. I hope you have a nice day sir, I may want to contact you about more questions later, where do you work?"

"I work at a dust shop in-between the downtown and uptown markets, near the docks. My shop is called; _From Dust Till Dawn._ "

"Okay, cool. Thanks again." Iro then turned and started walking to the cafeteria when he heard Mr. Prach call out;

"Hey kid!" Iro turned to see a crystal being tossed his way. Catching the light blue crystal that signified it as an ice dust crystal, if he remembered the class correctly.

 _If I don't then I probably shouldn't be learning how to be a warrior then huh? If I am forgetting stuff I just learned a little bit ago…_ Iro thought, mentally smirking to himself.

"Those were some good questions, let me know if that idea of yours actually works. Here's one to start you off." Iro just stood there, staring down at his first crystal, then looked up to see Mr. Prach already walking away. Iro carefully wrapped the crystal in a spare hankie he carried around, and then placed it in his bag. Then continued towards the cafeteria.

Walking into the cafeteria, Iro grabbed his lunch and scanned the room, looking for a place to sit. Seeing an unoccupied bench around where he usually sat, Iro started walking towards it. Just as he was about to sit down at the table, alone like he usually is, he heard his name being called, so he glanced around and saw Yang waving to him, gesturing for him to come over.

Iro sighed, then grabbed his tray of food and walked over to Yang.

"Yes?" Iro asked politely when he stood next to Yang.

"Come, sit down. You don't always have to be alone."

Iro looked at a couple of unoccupied seats across from Yang and, nodding, sat down. Next to Yang was Ruby, eating an apple as red as her cloak.

"Evening Ruby, how's it going?" Ruby looked at him when she finally took her first bite, then started talking with her mouth full.

"'M d'nn r'th'r 'll." She swallowed before she continued. "How about you?"

Iro had pieced together what Ruby had said the first time around, mostly, guessing it would be something like; 'I'm doing rather well.' So he answered her back like nothing happened with.

"Oh I am doing well too, thanks." Yang seemed to be trying to understand how _Iro_ could have understood what Ruby had said, seeing as how she was her _sister_ and _she_ couldn't even guess what Ruby had said.

Then one student walked in pushing a cart of mail, always the person who had the most detention was forced to do the mail rounds, which usually came on Fridays during dinner. And for the first time since he showed up, Iro got some mail. The mail carrier stood in front of Iro asking;

"Are you Iro Bleu?" Iro nodded to the man.

"You have two letters, here you go." He then handed Iro his mail. The man soon left to distribute the rest of the mail while Ruby and Yang stared at Iro.

"Well?" Yang asked.

Iro glanced at her, "'Well' what?"

Ruby was the one who spoke this time. "Who are the letters from?"

Iro looked down and read the names out loud for the two of them.

"One is from the 'Arme Shop' here in Vale-"

"That's the one weapon shop you spent _forever_ in." Yang intruded.

Iro just stared blankly at her, then continued on saying;

"The other is from-" Here Iro stopped himself, reading the address again.

Yang and Ruby waited for Iro to continue, when he didn't and was just staring at the letter, Ruby couldn't stand it anymore and asked as her curiosity demanded;

"Who sent it?"

Iro snapped his head up, looking at Ruby, having forgotten where he was.

"The other is from my hometown." Iro said so softly that Ruby and Yang could hardly hear him. They glanced at each other.

"Well, that's good, right?" Yang asked. Iro locked gazes with Yang, and she suddenly felt as though that was not a good question to ask.

"Technically, yes. My parents live on the outskirts of the town, and so the town would have to send the letter. But this is _the first letter_ that I have received Yang. Like, they hadn't sent me any before, for _three months._ " And then Yang understood. Iro was feeling homesick, and his parents finally decided to check on their child to see how he was doing, three months later.

Ruby, ever being the optimist, replied to that with;

"Yeah, _Or_ they could have sent that one week in, and it just got trapped in the bureaucratic nonsense that is mail nowadays, and have been waiting for a reply."

Iro thought about it for a moment. _That could certainly be true…_

"Eh, either way, I'll open it tomorrow." And set that aside and opened the first letter. In slightly elegant handwriting, the letter read:

Mr. Iro Bleu,

This letter is to inform you that the parts that you have requested are in and waiting for you at the shop for pick up. We can hold them for about a week, but no more, before we send them back. We hope you will stop by soon to pick up the parts and to let us know how the parts work for you. Thank you for shopping at 'The Arme Shop' And have a nice day.

 _Well then… I know what I am doing tomorrow._ Iro looked back at Yang and simply said;

"My parts that I ordered are in, up for another trip tomorrow?"

Yang looked like she was about to say something when Ruby elbowed her in the ribs.

Grumbling, Yang looked at Iro and asked; "Would Ruby be able to come as well?"

Iro's gaze then transferred to Ruby, "Only if she promises not to ask questions about my parts and there uses." Iro stated. Ruby rapidly nodded her head, signifying that yes, she would abide by his requests. "Then she can join us."

Iro then stood and, grabbing the two letters, headed back to his dorm to drop off the letters. Realizing that Iro had missed his extra combat class with Taiyang due to the long history class, as well as his Aura class with Myriad, Iro just shrugged, too tired to think about it, and fell to his bed instantly falling fast asleep.

Iro woke to an alarm he had set, the song singing out;

" _-day we waited for, this is-_ "

Before Iro dismissed it and got up. Iro slowly stretched, relaxing the tense muscles and getting blood to flow again. He then got up and got dressed in his usual blue carpenter pants and one of his many-colored shirts, choosing a light-gray one for today, and tied on his combat boots. Iro then stood and, feeling like he needed something else, added a green camouflage handkerchief and tied it on backward around his neck. He then added a small knife to one of the side pockets on his right pant-leg and walked out to get breakfast. Iro, not wanting to wake Branco, who likes to sleep in on Saturdays, just decided to have some buttered toast.

Soon Iro was waiting outside the girl's dorm for Yang and Ruby. Looking around the school to see who else might be up at about eight in the morning, and not seeing many people. Those he did see were over at the combat training arena, sparring.

Iro turned around at hearing the front door open, but didn't see Yang, or Ruby. Instead, Iro saw a girl dressed in a white combat dress, like Ruby's, with a long-sleeve short jacket that flared out towards the wrist, with a high collar that showed the inside of the jacket was colored red. She had snowflake symbols decorating her dress, with a large, twelve-pointed snowflake on the back, which he saw when she turned to close the door. She was also wearing a small pouch on the back of her belt and had what looked to be a rapier sheathed on her left hip. She then back around and walked a few steps before looking up and stopping momentarily when she noticed Iro. She had a gray scar over her left eye, starting about an inch above and extending to an inch below, that almost added to her appearance. Her eyes were light-blue, almost a silvery gray. She had on a pair of high-heeled boots that ended just below her knee, the same color as her dress and jacket.

"Who are you?" She asked, with a hint of an arrogant attitude.

Iro nodded at her saying; "My name is Iro Bleu, and you are?"

Her eyes narrowed slightly, _Bleu…Where have I heard that before…_

"I'm am Weiss Schnee." She responded, raising her head like a princess, and all dignified-like. Iro had a questioning look on his face.

"Schnee? Where have I heard that before…" Iro said under his breath, looking at Weiss, then remembered the symbol on the back of her dress. _I have seen that somewhere too…where from…_

"Nice to meet you, Ms. Schnee." Iro said politely. Weiss was watching Iro carefully, like she expected Iro to suddenly attack her.

"What are you doing out here?" Weiss asked, with that slightly arrogant tone back in her voice, like she expected to be answered. Iro just smiled at her and gave her an answer.

"I am waiting for a couple friends." Weiss just arched an eyebrow like, _is that all?_ So Iro decided to elaborate further; "To go to the market district uptown."

"Hmph," She said, and then just turned and walked away, heading for the front of the school. As Iro turned back to the dorm again, wondering about what had just happened, he saw the door open to admit Yang and Ruby. They smiled at Iro, who smiled back, and Ruby asked;

"Ready to go?" Iro just nodded and they turned around and walked off to take the bus.

As they stepped off the bus, Iro let Yang and Ruby lead him around the shops. They had agreed on the way to the market that they would pick up his parts at the end of their trip. Ruby asked for an ammo shop first, where she bought some fifty-caliber sniper-riffle ammo, as well as some of the same kind, but dust infused. Yang also bought some more shotgun ammo, her normal incendiary and high-ex' rounds.

They also stopped at a couple other places, a clothes store for Yang, parts store for Ruby, and a couple other places just to look, whatever caught their fancy. They decided to stop for lunch before heading over to collect Iro's parts and head back to campus, they had chosen to stop at a bakery, getting fresh bread and some meat from the deli part for sandwiches. They also grabbed a couple bottles of ramune soda, one of those imported drinks from Mistral.

They sat outside on a bench, Iro using his knife, which he had cleaned, to cut the bread while Yang and Ruby just chatted away, opening their ramune sodas. Once Iro had finished cutting the bread, they all made their sandwiches, with Yang storing the rest away in a bag she had brought. Once they finished, Iro led the way to the shop for him to pick up his parts.

Entering the store, with Ruby following him, Yang was waiting outside watching the stuff again, Iro felt a little bad for her, but soon realized that she probably preferred it to being in here.

Iro walked up to the counter and waited for someone to hear the bell from the door. They didn't have to wait long, as the man Iro first talked to, still dressed in his dark-brown jacket, orange shirt, and black pants, walked in and, upon seeing Iro, smiled at him.

"Ah, Mr. Bleu. Welcome back. You are here for your parts, right?" He asked. Iro nodded, "Then I will be right back." He paused for a moment upon seeing Ruby, he held out his hand saying; "I'm Rimsky Torchwick." Ruby shook his hand, replying with; "I'm Ruby." Before he turned and entered the back room.

Ruby took a moment to look around the room and froze when she noticed the design wall. Ruby quickly rushed over to the wall with a look of awe on her face, looking at design after design when they appeared on the wall, apparently fangirling over the weapons and armor. Iro had been watching them his first time over when he had been waiting, but noticed that there were some new ones on the wall.

Iro walked over to the wall, looking at some of the new designs, noticing one that popped up. It was a cane, but weaponized, having the bottom of the cane equipped with a gun that was specifically a certain kind of round, about like a thirty-thirty riffle. The hook part was like a grapnel, for a non-lethal option in a fight, the whole thing was made of a synthesized metal that was light-weight but also rather strong.

Mr. Rimsky entered the room again, with a couple large boxes and a few bags. Iro winced, not fully realizing until that moment how many parts he had ordered. Iro quickly walked over to the counter to help him with the parts, and, after taking them off his hands, set the bags on the floor and the boxes on the counter. Afterward, Mr. Rimsky told Iro the price for the parts, and that since he had purchased a good amount of parts, Iro got a discount on the price. Iro then handed a good amount of lien over to Mr. Rimsky to pay for it and then left the store, dragging Ruby out the door along with his bags and boxes of parts.

When they finally got outside, Yang was sitting on the same bench as before, watching Iro pull Ruby out of the store as he carried the parts.

 _Not as long a wait as last time._ Yang thought, smirking at the pair as they walked up to Yang. Luckily, Yang and Ruby didn't have many bags and so the trip back to the school wasn't wholly uncomfortable, and they made it back in time for dinner.

After which Iro went to his dorm and started working on his idea for a weapon, basically locking himself in his room for the weekend, only coming out for food at the cafeteria, which they serve three meals a day, every day, it's just optional for the students to attend or if they want to make their own.

By Sunday night, and very late at night at that, he had finally finished the prototype for his new weapon, or weapons...

Iro was woken up by Branco pounding on his door Monday morning. Iro got up and looked at the clock, seeing it was five-am, and then angrily got up and walked to the door. Opening it, he glared at Branco saying in a voice as cold and hard as frozen steel;

"This had better be good." Branco, who was used to an attitude similar to this when Iro got up too early and not going to bed until late, just arched an eyebrow and responded with;

"I don't know, do you think that today, the start of the week, would be a good time to wake up really early in the morning?" Branco asked with a hint of sarcasm, when Iro's face didn't change and, if anything, grew colder, he dropped it and just flat out said:

"Look, today is assignment day. You get to either shadow a local huntsman or huntress, or you can go and follow a team from Beacon and just follow them around and stuff. And you should always get there a couple minutes before it opens to get the best pick, and, well, some of them get up this early and they don't like to wait for some student to get up. So they go and their missions are shown first, but it is one of those time-limit ones, have to register in a certain amount of time. So come on! Get ready and let's go, we have about ten minutes to get ready and still be there relatively early."

Iro just stood there for a few more moments, then looked at Branco and asked one question… "Huh?" Branco's face started turning red, cherry red, before Iro put up his hands and said;

"Relax there Branco, just messing with you. Question though, if we have weapons, can we bring them?" Branco, after cooling down a little bit, with no shortage of curses mentioned in his mind, just nodded at Iro and then turned around and walked away. Iro looked after Branco for a moment before closing his door to get dressed.

Iro wore the same thing as he usually does, carpenter pants, colored t-shirt, royal blue this time, and added the same camo-hankie as before. This time though, he added his new pair of twin swords, one was of the similar long foreign design as that katana that he had used in weapons class, the other was of a similar style, just a bit shorter called a wakizashi, he recalled from his research of weapons.

They had been a single edged sword, made to be one of the best cutting weapons, the edge was razor-sharp and thickened as it reached the back of the blade. It has what is known as a blood groove near the back of it, almost a quarter-inch away from the back. The back was rather thick, about a quarter-inch thick near the tip, and just under a half-inch towards the hilt. It had wave-like designs near the edge of the blade, showing its sharpness. The shorter wakizashi was about two foot in length blade-wise, total about three-foot in length, compared to the nearly four and a half neighbor katana. The hilts of both were also compartments to hold dust-crystals to empower the sword.

He had the wakizashi strapped to his waist at the moment, blade facing up, and was carrying the katana in his right hand, with the blade facing forward in the sign of peace, or so he had read of the style.

Iro, once deciding he was ready, walked out of his room and walked into the main room of the dorm, grabbing a couple pieces of toast that Branco had made for him. They decided to eat on the way, so Branco and Iro left their dorm, Branco also wearing his armor and carrying his sword as well. Branco had explained to Iro on the way that the place for the assignments was in the weapons room, due to its size.

Once they entered the room, they saw that there were temporary holographic screens set up along the edges and a couple spots in the center of the room. They also saw some of the teachers walking around the room, double checking everything. Branco and Iro were among some of the few students up and about at the early morning hour. They decided to look around together, but if they found one that they were interested in, they will split up.

And so, Iro accompanied Branco as they searched for a one-day assignment. They soon found out that the left side of the room, when your back is to the door, is for local huntsman jobs, whereas the right was the teams one. Iro soon split up with Branco, Branco finding a job with a Dr. Oobleck and Professor Port, whoever they were.

Iro was looking around on the team sign when he saw one that he thought was interesting, it was labeled as "CFVY", and talked about shadowing a team who was going exploring in the forest with a huntsmen to determine better boundaries for Beacon Academy and to find good options for one of the next qualification tests. Iro shrugged and opened it to check the time, it was labeled for an hour later,

 _Eh,_ Iro thought, _Why not?_ And tapped on the screen, entered his name and school ID number, and hit submit. The mission then disappeared from the selection. Iro just shrugged to himself again and, with nothing else to do except meet the team at the shuttle station, Iro started walking to the bus stop. Iro then thought that he should grab a bag and some similar camping supplies, even if it was supposed to just be a one-day thing, it was assignment _week_. So he ran back to his room, grabbed a bag and hastily shoved in a couple water bottles and some snacks and stuff like flint and steel, a small lighter, some lighter fluid, tinder, and matches. He also threw in another couple knives and some rope and stuff. As he was about to walk out the door he remembered his letter from his parents, knowing he was going to forget about it later, as well as not having enough time to read it before he left, he grabbed it and left, running for the bus stop and, eventually the shuttle station.

Iro got to the shuttle station with two minutes to spare and started looking for his shuttle. He soon found it, and walked over to a tall man, only a couple years older than Iro, but still rather tall, about seven-foot if Iro had to guess. He had close-shaved black hair, earth-colored skin, and had dark hazel eyes. He was wearing a light-green robe that extended from his right shoulder down to his left hip, and ended about mid-thigh over a pair of black pants and boots with a green shin-guard. He had on a dark green ribbed shoulder piece that extended down to his elbow, held on by a piece of brown leather strapped across his chest and his back over a black t-shirt. He also had a pair of black gloves with a light-green, with dark-green trim, covering the back of his hand and changing into armbraces upon reaching his wrists, and stopped at his mid-forearm. Strapped to his back, most likely another function of the brown straps other than his should-piece, was a large, six and a half-foot, orange and red sword.

Iro walked up to the man and asked;

"Is this the shuttle for team CFVY?" Iro asked, spelling out the team's name. The man looked down at Iro and gave the smallest hint of a smile, and nodded saying;

"It is pronounced team 'coffee', you don't spell it out." Holding out his hand, "I'm Yatsuhashi."

Iro shook his hand; "Iro Bleu."

"Yeah I figured, only two people here signed up for our mission, and seeing as how the other is a girl…." Yatsuhashi looked behind Iro, slightly bowing to someone.

Iro turned to see three other people, the one in the lead, and the one Yatsuhashi bowed to, was a girl around the same age. She had on a black beret over long, dark amber hair, getting light towards the end, she also had on a pair of sunglasses that contrasted her stark-white skin. She wore a black scarf over a light brown long-sleeved turtle-neck, which had some dark brown leather on her sides. She had on a black belt with bullets along her left hip and ending in a gold circular buckle. She was wearing a pair of black cargo pants with gold buttons and ties at her knees and ended at a pair of black, high-heeled boots. She was also wearing black gloves that ended at her wrist, with a black tussle on her right forearm on her turtle-neck. Clutched in her right hand looked to be a square, black bag about a foot in length, with a black handle and some gold patterns displayed across the bag.

To her left was a man with dark red skin and hair just a shade lighter, and blank white eyes. He had what looked to be random lines and small spike-like ridges along his arms, also wearing black gloves- _what is it with the black gloves?_ -that ended mid-arm. He also had on a red tank-top with a black trim, he was wearing a pair of black pants as well, with a pocket on his right hip. He was carrying twin blades attached to his wrist, which were also metal knuckles made for punching an enemy with serious force, and that extended back up towards his shoulders.

To the leaders right was a rabbit-faunus, with long brown ears with pink insides that extended about a foot above her matching brown hair. Wearing light red body armor that had some extra gold armor on her shoulders, wrists, and a matching belt. She had on black pants that connected to the red armor by two more gold bands about mid-thigh. She also had on some extra armor protecting her outer thighs, and a pair of gold boots. She didn't appear to have a weapon, but neither did the other girl, who Iro assumed was the team leader.

Their leader walked up to Iro and Yatsuhashi, looking Iro over, noticing his weapons, and, after switching her bag to her other hand, held out her right hand asking; "Iro Bleu?"

Iro shook her hand, which was firm and calloused, not what Iro was expecting, and answered with a; "Yes ma'am." She smiled at that, turning to the red-haired man saying;

"Fox, did you hear that? He called me ma'am." All Fox did was raise an eyebrow, which had the other girl laughing, who the leader then turned to look at, raising an eyebrow of her own.

"Sorry Coco, I couldn't help it." The faunus said with a slight accent, he couldn't place it though. Their leader, Coco, just shook her head slightly and said;

"It's alright Velvet, I was just about to burst out laughing myself." She turned back to Iro and told him;

"Iro, this is my team, Velvet, the one who is laughing like a maniac at the moment." Which made Velvet laugh harder, tears were starting to fall from her eyes from laughing so hard, and looked about to fall over onto ground. Coco continued, gesturing to Fox; "This is Fox, he is a bit quiet but great in a fight." She gestured behind Iro, "You already met Yatsu, and I'm Coco. We just need to wait for that last one to arrive before we can get going."

Iro nodded and greeted the rest of team CFVY, when Velvet stopped laughing enough to act normal-ish enough for him to do so. Iro looked around the shuttle area, trying to figure out who else they would be waiting for when he heard the sound of liquid being poured into a cup, emanating from the ship behind him. Turning, Iro saw that Coco was drinking coffee and watched Velvet pour herself a cup as well. Coco saw Iro looking and raised a brow above the sunglasses.

"What?" She asked, "How do you think we got our nickname?" Iro just shook his head, then looked toward Yatsuhashi, who was standing and looking out in the crowd of people swarming the docks, third-shift workers heading home while the next batch enters to take their place.

Iro headed over to Yatsu, and, looking out into the crowd as well, asked;

"Who else are you waiting for?"

Yatsu turned a hazel eye to look at Iro, then looked back out towards the street before answering.

"It is a girl from signal, her name is-"

"Is her name Yang Xiao Long?" Iro interrupted. Yatsuhashi actually looked a little irritated for a moment before looking at Iro.

"And how would you know that?" He asked. Iro pointed to the very same, and specific, blonde-haired girl.

"Because that's her and she looks to be headed our way." Yatsu looked to where Iro was pointing and nodded, then turned around and walked into the ship. Coco and the other members of her team got up and walked over to Iro as Yang walked up to the shuttle.

"Hey Iro, how's it going? I didn't expect to see you here." Yang asked, walking up to Iro.

"Hey Yang, nothing much, just here for a mission. You?" Iro responded.

"Same here. Who are these people?"

At this Coco stepped forward, answering Yang's question.

"My name is Coco, leader of team CFVY. This is Velvet and Fox, and Yatsuhashi is exiting the ship now." Yang greeted the team as Yatsu walked over to Coco and, after greeting Yang, told Coco;

"Ships ready to go when you are." Coco nodded, then announced to the whole group;

"Okay, get your stuff around, we are leaving in two minutes." Yang just walked onto the ship, carrying her bag, Iro grabbed his bag and checked his sword then followed her onto the ship. Everyone else just ran around making the last minute checks required before takeoff. Soon they were under way.

Iro was sitting next to Yang and Yatsuhashi with the other three members of the team were on the other side. Velvet seemed to be in a conversation with Fox, even though it doesn't look as if he is talking back to her. Iro was looking out down at his pack, getting ready to open it and read his letter when a thought occurred to him. Looking up, Iro made eye contact with Coco, or he thought he did anyway, it was hard to tell with her wearing shades all the time.

"So what is the assignment?" Iro asked her, Coco looked at Iro, motioned for Velvet to stop talking, and answered Iro.

"We are heading to a place called 'Emerald Forest'. Our job is to search the area, looking for any ruins or old buildings, as well as determine the Grimm threat-level. We are doing this for Professor Ozpin and his request to look for a new qualification area to determine those whose goal is to enter Beacon. One of those test areas to find out if we are physically ready for the school and such."

Iro nodded at the explanation, Coco went and gestured for Velvet to continue. Iro looked back down and pulled out his letter, just staring at the envelope for a few moments before moving to open it. Just as he was about to tear open the seal a voice came over the intercom.

"We will be landing in the Emerald Forest in five minutes, repeat, five minutes 'til destination."

Iro, who had looked up when the voice came over the intercom, focused back on the letter, finally opening the seal. Yang had noticed Iro opening the letter and just watched him, looking to see his reaction.

Iro read the letter, it said:

Dear Mr. Iro Bleu,

We regret to inform you of this, and give you our greatest condolences.

Iro started having a sinking feeling in his gut, _I don't think I like this…_ Iro thought, but continued anyways.

We send this letter to let you know that your house has been attacked. There are piles upon piles of bodies, but none are your parents. It looked as if they had put up one heck of a good fight. The bodies are of the White Fang, armored and heavily armed.

 _White Fang? Why them?_

We also found a lot of dust residue around the house, as well as many more bodies in the hallway, ending right outside a blasted-open door. The only other evidence that we could find is a weapon registered as your mother's, Mahogany Bleu. It is a mangled crossbow that looked as if it was cut in half and had blown up. Your house was then set afire, but during the fight, your mother had contacted the local Atlas police department, and we already had a crew on the way, they just got there too late. The image we had gathered from one of our scout drones was a picture of high-ranking White Fang member Adam Taurus, exiting the house before it was set ablaze. Like we said, we did not find your parent's bodies, but there is overwhelming evidence that there were no survivors. We are extremely sorry for your loss. If you wish, we can send you the weapon, as well as a detailed, or as detailed as we can make, of what happened prior to the house fire.

We are sorry for your loss,

Atlas Corporation.

Iro was shaking when he finished the letter, then re-read it a couple more times, letting it sink in. Iro carefully folded the letter and placed it back into his bag, hearing the landing gear extend, Iro unbuckled from his seat, still shaking with emotion. Iro strapped his bag to his back and slid his katana into his belt next to his wakizashi. As the platform lowered, and everyone started getting up and getting their stuff around, Iro walked off the shuttle, with Yang following quickly behind.

Iro walked away from the shuttle until he couldn't hear the hustle of team CFVY unloading stuff. He then fell to his knees, breaking into a small sob, Yang, who had just been watching, finally walked forward and embraced Iro. He stiffened for a moment, but then broke into another sob, after a couple moments, Iro's grief turned to anger.

Pulling away from Yang, Iro stood, feeling as if he was on fire, Iro was enveloped in a gray glow. Iro suddenly felt as if he was going to explode, he heard a loud growl echoing off to the right. Iro turned to see a Grimm, an Ursa, his brain supplied him through his anger. The large bear-like creature charged towards Iro.

Iro's gray glow suddenly took on a red-orange tinge and charged at the Ursa, intending to meet it half-way. When the Ursa leapt to take a swing at Iro, Iro ducked under it's left armed swing, drawing his sword with extreme speed, and sliced the Grimm in half.

Iro, raging with cold fury, then looked back at the slowly dissolving body. He heard another roar, indicating a pack, Iro turned back towards the direction the Ursa had come from, to see a small pack of Beowolves and an odd boarbatusk or two. Iro just lifted his sword into a ready position, and sank into a stance, ready to charge again.

Yang, still watching since he took off, was confused. Iro looked to be using something similar to her semblance, then, after hearing the new roar, looked and saw the small pack. Yang activated her weapons, but hung back, waiting to see what Iro would do. She glanced back after hearing branches snap, to see team CFVY running towards them, probably from noticing the roar. Yang gestured for them to stop, and then turned back toward Iro, to see him just standing there, sword up, almost…challenging.

Iro was just standing there, waiting to see if the Grimm would take the bait.

 _I'm only one guy here, with a sword, you must have killed hundreds just like me._ But that thought just re-ignited his rage, and he charged towards them again. The Grimm, not going to run in the face of an insignificant threat, attacked him.

The first Beowulf to make it to Iro did the same thing as the Ursa, leaping left-foreleg swipe, Iro just swung downwards with his katana, separating the arm from it's body. After doing that, Iro spun to his right in a quick circle, slicing it's head clean off and having it disappear almost instantly. Another two Beowolves were upon him, not having time to dodge or block both strikes, Iro stepped back, blocking one strike, but the other sliced his cheek. Iro's head had snapped to the side from the momentum of the Beowulf's swing, but then turned his head back towards the wolves, the cut slowly healing. Iro was then glaring at the wolves, Iro then swung his sword sideways, making them back up, then drew his other sword with his left hand.

Now dual wielding, Iro went on one of the best defenses ever made. Offense.

Iro attacked with a fury almost akin to Yang's, he quickly cut down those two beowolves, slicing from their shoulder to hip. Iro then went on attacking, slicing every Beowulf that got in his way. Sliced an arm off here, cut a leg there, split one's head in half. Soon there was a pile of decaying bodies behind Iro, who now faced a Boarbatusk.

The boarbatusk jumped up then started spinning rapidly, as soon as it's tusks hit the ground, it launched itself at Iro, who rolled to the left, barely dodging the strike. He remembered something about it being heavily armored, with the only unarmored part being the stomach.

So as Iro stood back up and the boarbatusk charged him again, same as before, Iro kneeled and planted his katana into the ground, and, crossing his wakizashi in front of it, created a sword block using the ground as extra leverage and foundation to try and block the boarbatusk's charge.

The boarbatusk kept charging, not even noticing what it's prey had done. And then ran into a solid wall, knocking it back. Iro stood to try and finish it off, but it quickly flipped over and backed out of range to try again. Iro was then struck in the back, turning he saw the last Beowulf, and swung his sword, which was somehow coated in yellow flames, and sliced it in half before it could think of attacking again, it actually exploded in a burst of light.

Iro heard the grunting and scraping signaling the boarbatusk was charging again, he quickly spun and planted his katana in the ground again, but changed the placing of his other sword after a thought, angling it more outward than across, locking the hand-guard in with the katana's blade. As the boarbatusk charged, Iro planted his legs and knee into the ground, Iro prepared for the repercussion. The boarbatusk connected with the block, sinking the blade of the wakizashi deep into it's back, piercing it's heart. Iro then stood, yanking the sword out of the dissolving body, then did what was called a chiburi and noto, swinging the swords in a small arc to dislodge any blood or gore on the weapons before sheathing them.

Iro was starting to cool down a bit now, still in great emotional pain, but he buried that deep in his mind to deal with later. Still exuding cold fury but calmed down enough for his gray-like glow died around him. He heard someone walking up next to him, and turned to see Yang, she was watching him out of the corner of her eye as she studied the slowly decaying bodies of the once-Grimm. She then turned towards Iro, crossing her arms she just watched him.

"Are you cooled off now? Or do we need to find you more Grimm to obliterate?"

Iro just looked at Yang, trying to not glare bloody daggers to just glaring, apparently it worked because she isn't backing away or acting odd.

 _What? You mean like just attacking a pack of Grimm all by yourself with weapons that hadn't been tested? No, at least she didn't do anything odd…_ Iro thought sarcastically to himself.

Iro just shrugged, not trusting himself to speak. And turned to look at the approaching group of team CFVY and a couple atlas soldiers. Most of them were looking around, occasionally glancing at Iro, trying to see what had happened. Coco however, had just been staring at Iro the entire time, not bothering to look around, just studying him behind those expressionless shades. After everybody had stopped looking around, Coco turned and started walking back to the ship, silently, everyone else followed.


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5:

Iro and Yang had just cleared another section of the Emerald Forest, pretty much no Grimm here either. Iro pulled out a notebook and marked the section clean, looking at the next section he made to pull out a map, but Yang motioned for him to stop. Iro quietly put his notebook back and crept up next to Yang, looking for what spooked her.

Ever since the fight a couple hours ago, Iro would get a fleeting glimpse of a red-orange outline of Yang, it rarely happened, but it was still interesting. Iro had been chalking it up to just the sun reflecting off the trees or something.

Iro finally found her source of disturbance, it was a large Deathstalker. Hanging right outside a large cave in a cliff, they looked at each other, but they knew they couldn't take it out themselves, not without one getting really injured. They probably could in a year or two, but not right now, so Iro whispered a plan into Yang's ear. Yang, with a huge smile on her face, just nodded and said;

"Let's do it."

Yang then started stalking away from the giant scorpion, maneuvering it between her and the cave. Iro had the really stupidly brave part and started creeping the opposite direction, towards the cave. Once the trees ended, Iro took a deep breath, then charged into the open, shouting at the Deathstalker.

"HEY! YEAH, YOU, YOU GIANT, STUPID COCKROACH! COME GET ME, I'M A REALLY TASTY SNACK!"

This got the stalker's attention, Iro even picked up a branch and chucked it at the Deathstalker, just to be sure. The Deathstalker roared a challenge, but Iro was already running into the cave, soon followed by the Deathstalker. Iro ran as deep into the cave as he could, then turned, drawing his sword, and backed up into the wall. As the Deathstalker saw that it's prey was cornered by the light of it's stinger, it slowly blocked off Iro's escape route Iro, not knowing what he should do next, decided to pick up a rock and proceeded to throw it at the Grimm.

The rock just bounced harmlessly off it's thick armor, but it still irked it enough to charge Iro. Iro saw it coming and, turning, ran up the wall as far as he could go, which was only a few feet. As he felt his momentum wearing off, Iro then shoved off the wall with his legs, clearing the monster and landing with a roll.

 _That's going to hurt in the morning._ Iro thought, but just stood and ran, slicing at anything that looked important to the structure's ceiling. He then shouted down and out the cave to Yang.

"GO FOR IT YANG! FIRE NOW!" Yang, trusting Iro, stood and began firing shotgun slugs at the rock above the cave, determined to cave it in. Large rocks were falling and started blocking the cave entrance, but she just kept on firing.

Iro, seeing the doorway collapsing, dove through the opening, followed quickly by the Deathstalker's stinger. Iro landed out of the way, when he stood, he turned around to see if there plan worked.

The Deathstalker's stinger was stuck beneath boulders and was straining to get out. After everything was settled, the Deathstalker pulled one last time, freeing it's stinger, and leaving a small entryway just big enough for a person to walk through.

The whole cave entrance was covered, except that one small opening. Yang walked up next to Iro, then slammed her palm into his back, almost making him stumble from the blow, turning back, Iro saw that Yang was laughing. Iro just smiled slightly, not quite feeling like he should be happy yet, with his parents gone… and with that his smile disappeared. Yang then walked over to the cliff-side, next to the opening and, still smiling, drew a small picture on the wall depicting a few men holding weapons facing the Deathstalker.

Turning back around, she gestured to Iro and they continued on to the next area.

Sometime later, Iro and Yang had stumbled upon some ruins, looked almost to be like a town, before the Grimm showed up probably. There were several buildings, all made of the same gray stone, in two lines, almost like a pathway in-between the rows. At the end of the field, there was a large building, what looked to almost be like a debate hall.

Iro and Yang looked around from the small hill off to one side, seeing a bridge on the far side, Iro pointed it out to Yang, she nodded and pulled out her scroll. Contacting team CFVY, which had also split into two-person teams, Yang told them about the ruins.

"Oh, and Iro found what looks to be a bridge on the far side, we are going to go check it out."

"Okay," Coco replied, "Just be careful, we don't know how stable that bridge is, as well as if there are Grimm in the area. Meet us back at the plane when you are finished, We have searched this place enough."

Yang nodded, then hung-up. She then hitched up her backpack a little more and proceeded to walk towards the bridge, with Iro trailing behind her slightly, keeping a look out.

Iro saw a couple glimpses of what he thought was Grimm, but when he looked he couldn't find anything, so he just shrugged and kept going, still watching those glimpses of movement.

They made it to the bridge without any problems, which worried a small part of Iro, but he just shook it off, ignoring it. They then studied the bridge, gauging to see if it was safe to cross. Yang decided to test it out and just walked out on it. Halfway across, Yang stopped, then jumped up and down a few times. When nothing happened, she motioned Iro to join her and they made their way across the bridge.

Getting to the other side, Iro spotted a clearing hidden partially by some trees in front of the bridge. Entering the clearing, Iro and Yang saw another ruin on the opposite side of said clearing.

Walking over there, they noticed twenty small pedestals, but otherwise, there was nothing else that wasn't normal. As normal as you can get with ruins after all. Just the large curving wall that stopped at about half the circle, with the odd column or two.

Iro just looked at Yang and shrugged, then added the place to his notes. They then turned and began walking back towards the shuttle. After crossing the bridge again, they decided to take one last look through the town.

Iro was leading the way through this time, with Yang trailing a couple feet behind, she suddenly shouted in surprise. Iro spun around and saw a Beowolf standing above Yang, who was on the ground. Iro saw red, overcome with rage Iro charged the Beowulf, not even bothering to draw his sword, and tackled it off of Yang. After landing, Iro took use of the dazed expression of the stunned Beowulf and crawled up to it's head. As it came back into focus, the last thing it felt was Iro's hand on it's snout and the back of it's head, before Iro twisted with all his might, snapping it's neck.

 _That's what you get for trying to hurt Yang…_

Iro slowly stood, turning to see Yang already on her feet with an expression of slight worry, which she quickly hid. Behind Yang, Iro saw another pack of Beowolves heading their direction and tapped into that feeling of rage and raw power. Feeling his speed and strength increase, as well as his durability, Iro charged at the pack, drawing his swords this time before he made contact.

Iro wasn't even focused on defense, somehow feeling like that wasn't even a problem, he felt invincible, and he also didn't really care about defense, he just wanted to _destroy_ something.

Iro took the first beast before it could even try to block, cutting it from shoulder to hip, leaving only a pile of ash and blood on the ground. The second actually stopped to try and block Iro's second sword, but wasn't fast enough and ended up in a slowly dissolving pile next to it's brother. Iro finally was in the middle of the pack and had lost momentum. He then lashed out, hoping to kill a few before they noticed that they surrounded him. He killed two more, one losing it's head, the other an arm and then both it's legs. Iro was just cutting them to shreds, then they noticed that he was in the center of their pack, and started attacking him on all sides.

Iro suddenly became _very_ interested in defense, trying to block and dodge every hit. It was working, but it was a losing battle, for everyone he blocked, two more were thrown. Sooner or later he would get hit, and he decided to make use and plan for it. Iro decided to not block a strike coming toward his left side so that he could finish one off, slicing it's throat, Iro was surprised not to feel an impact, but chalked it up to adrenaline. Iro also suddenly felt just a little bit faster, stronger even, and decided to use it.

Iro dropped to his knees and spun in a circle with his swords out, trying to cut out the legs from underneath his enemy, or at least get them to back up. And back up they did, rather quickly when they started feeling the blade pass through some of the muscle and fur on their legs. Once he got room, Iro jumped to his feet and attacked the nearest Beowulf, slamming his sword hilt into it's face then stabbing his wakizashi through it's chest. Turning to face his next opponent, he pulled on the sword in the last Beowulf's chest, but it stuck fast. Iro yanked again, but when it didn't budge, he let go, avoiding a swipe at where his arm just was.

Iro then gripped his katana with both hands, with his extra speed gained from doing that, along with the better cuts and strength, It certainly made up for the lost range. Iro became feverish in cutting, slicing, and literally tearing apart the Grimm opposing him.

Iro was spinning around to take care of another Beowulf, only to find it closer than he expected, and got a claw-swipe to the chest. Iro fell backward, but was oddly unharmed. He had braced for the hit, but if anything, he felt stronger, and angrier. Iro just hopped back up, only to be hit again, giving the Beowolves that were left, the four or five of them, to circle up around Iro and began striking at him. Iro just ignored the hits and focused on trying to get back up. With every hit Iro became stronger, slightly faster, and, probably most important, angrier. Iro was in such a fit of rage, he couldn't even hear the sound around him, the grunts and snarls of the Beowolves, Yang shouting and firing at the Beowolves, trying to get them off Iro, but not actually trying to hit them for fear of hitting Iro, all of it was just noise.

Iro couldn't even process it, not even his inhuman roar when he decided to forgo his sword, more like it was kicked out of his hands, and just grabbed the nearest limb. After latching onto it, he pulled with all of his strength in the opposite direction, slamming one Beowulf into another. He then hopped to his feet, and, with eyes the color of blood, launched himself at the nearest Grimm, literally ripping it's throat out. Iro then proceeded to punch, kick, and tear the rest of the Grimm apart. When they were all dissolving into piles of ash and blood, which Iro was coated in, Yang decided to approach Iro to hand him back his swords.

Iro could still only hear noise, but was starting to discern which direction it was coming from. So when Yang called Iro's name, he turned to her, and she saw his eyes, still the color of blood, and raised the swords just an inch. But she had moved them enough for Iro to take notice, even in his rage-fueled state. But what he saw was not Yang trying to hand him back his swords, but someone holding up weapons against him, and he was dragged into that state of pure instinct. Doing what his instinct told him to do, Iro attack Yang.

Yang, shaking herself out of the sight of Iro having blood-red eyes, the same as her eyes are when she uses her Semblance, she had just enough time to avoid Iro's left hook towards her face, dropping his swords. Yang then subconsciously activated Amber Celica, her weapons, and got into a fighting stance.

Iro didn't stop there though, and just attacked Yang, swinging hook after hook, slowly getting more and more efficient and precise. Not just wildly swinging anymore, Iro was using all of that training that Taiyang had taught him, left jab, right hook, jab, jab, hook, left uppercut, right hook leading into a right roundhouse kick. Iro just kept throwing punch after punch, kick after kick, combo after combo, trying to get Yang, not realizing who he was attacking. But Yang, living with Taiyang for years, was superior to Iro in skill, but almost couldn't keep up with the speed and strength of his strikes.

Yang was blocking and redirecting strike after strike, trying to get Iro to calm down and stop. Finally Iro got one hook through, and cracked Yang across the jaw, making her stumble back. Iro suddenly stopped pursuing her and just stood there in stance.

Yang looked back at Iro, feeling her semblance activate, she exploded with a burst of energy and eyes a bright red, and charged Iro. Iro blocked the first couple strikes, but soon became overwhelmed by Yang's now-superior force and speed. She even decided to fire her built-in shotguns to add more damage and to add speed to her recoil so she could attack faster and more frequently.

Eventually Yang got completely past Iro's guard and began punching him in the face, really hard, and really fast. Mumbling to herself;

"Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep!"

Yang soon stopped afterward, watching Iro stumble about, but still not quite understanding where he was. Yang just walked up to Iro, who was facing away from her, and tapped his shoulder. When he turned to her and saw the red still there, Yang threw a right hook with all her might behind it, even adding a shotgun blast to it, at his jaw, effectively knocking him unconscious.

Yang then picked Iro up and carried him over her shoulders all the way back to the shuttle. Once making it there, team CFVY saw Yang carrying Iro, both of them covered in black ash and blood, and moved to take him from her, Yatsu took Iro and brought him inside with Fox following to look at him while Velvet looked over a very tired Yang, Coco just stood there, looking at Yang with a raised eyebrow. Yang sighed, and her only response to that was:

"It's a long story."

"Well, we have about a two-hour flight back to the city, think that will be enough?" Coco asked, a small smile breaking through her calm façade. Yang just nodded and walked onto the ship.

Iro woke up to a familiar feeling, one of nausea, sore muscles, and a headache. Thoughts were rushing through his head, trying to figure out where he was, why he was there, and-

 _What happened?_

Iro cracked open an eyelid, the light from his surroundings had hurt his eyes when he first awoke, so he had closed them as he thought. Glancing around, he noticed he was in a large metal room, and he was not alone. Iro saw three people on his right, but he couldn't see clear enough to identify them. Once he determined that he could at least call for help should he need to, he slowly opened his eyes, trying to adjust to the sudden, artificial light.

Iro's eyesight was also becoming clearer, and, looking around again, noted five people, but could still only see blurs. Iro's head throbbed again, reminding him of his headache, as well as flooding his mind with memories.

Iro remembered boarding a shuttle, checking his swords before opening his pack, he remembered talking to some people…. Team CFVY, yeah, that was who they were. Iro remembered reading a letter, but couldn't remember what was in it, he remembered getting off the shuttle and walking away from it, and getting attacked by Grimm. Iro's eyes flew open, and he didn't try to pretend to be asleep, he quickly looked around and saw his swords a couple feet away.

The blurs on the other side of the room started moving a bit, noticing that Iro was awake. One, a distinctly yellow blur, got up and walked over, swaying a bit. Iro figured he must be on a shuttle then, because he didn't know of any metal rooms back at Signal. As the blur got closer, it started clearing up, like cleaning a lens-frame.

When the person got close enough, Iro saw that it was Yang, and made to get up. Only he couldn't, something was stopping his arms. Looking down, Iro finally noticed his arms strapped to the chair, as well as his legs. Having been leaning back, Iro was disoriented and hadn't noticed.

As Yang stepped next to the chair, she crouched down, being a little beneath Iro's eyesight, and looked him in the eyes. Seeing them as their normal hazel-blue color, she nodded and started to unstrap Iro. Iro's eyesight began to clear up again as the nausea died down, the headache remained though, and reminded Iro of that from the constant throb at the back of his skull.

Looking at the other passengers now, he saw team CFVY watching him, Velvet sitting next to Yatsuhashi on the right, with Fox between her and Coco. Iro rubbed his wrists, trying to soothe the irritated skin, and was looking back at them.

 _I must have been thrashing while I was unconscious, which is why I was tied down…_

Iro looked at Yang again, who had sat down next to Iro after unstrapping Iro's arms and legs.

"So," Coco started, Yang shot her a look saying something like; _Let me handle this._

"So," Yang restated, "What happened earlier today?"

Iro tilted his head a little to the right at her question, trying to put pieces together.

"I don't remember much, but I'll tell you what I can remember." Iro said, before taking a deep breath and began his story.

"I remember boarding the shuttle in Vale, and I had remembered team CFVY, but I had forgotten that you, Yang had accompanied us until I just saw you." Iro popped his neck to the left, then his right. "I remember sitting down and seeing you talking to us, but not really what you said, Coco. I then remember opening my pack and taking something out, but I can't remember what…." Here Iro had trailed off, he then shook his head and continued.

"I remember walking off the plane after it landed, and then being attacked by Grimm. I don't remember the fight, but I remember Yang having walked up to me afterward, and then we left to go search the forest." Iro turned to look at Yang before continuing. "The next thing I remember is us trapping that Deathstalker in the cave." Here, team CFVY gasped like they hadn't known what happened. Yang looked a bit nervous but just smiled at the others, claiming;

"Hey, with all that happened I didn't really think of giving you a report okay?" Coco just shook her head and gestured for Iro to continue.

Iro turned back forward and stared at the wall. "The only other thing I can remember is when we found those ruins, and that bridge, but I can't remember anything after that." Looking at Coco now, he asked;

"What did happen?" Coco just looked at Yang, waiting for an explanation. Iro turned to Yang as well, seeing her wince as she recalled the memory.

"What happened," She started, "Was something I hope never does again." Yang turned to face Iro. "You attacked me, Iro."

Iro's eyes widened in shock, disbelief was written plainly across his face. Followed by denial, then shock, disbelief again, then anger, and finally settled in hateful sadness. Looking Yang in the eye, he said; "Please, continue."

"Well, let me start from the beginning. You had rushed off the shuttle because you had read that letter from your parents, but from what I gather, it wasn't one you wanted to read. Your anger and fear attracted some of the nearby Grimm, causing them to attack you. You had somehow activated your semblance, which really closely resembles mine, and you had torn them to shreds." Yang shook her head at something before continuing with her story.

"We had just discovered the ruins before we decided to head back. We had called Coco and let her know that we were going to check the bridge, and if stable, we were going to see what was on the other side. On the other side, we had found a small alcove-like ruin with about twenty small pedestals. We logged it and started to head back. Once passing back through the ruins, we were attacked by Grimm. A Beowulf had pounced on me, and was about to kill me-" She looked down for a moment, choking slightly, overcome with the emotion of almost dying. "but you saved me." She now looked Iro in the eye. "You had tackled it off me, not even drawing your sword, and you snapped it's neck."

They heard Yatsuhashi whistle quietly and looked at him. He just shrugged and said;

"Those wolves have thick necks. It would have taken a good amount of strength to be able to just hold it's head in place, but to snap it?" Yatsu just shook his head. Yang took that as a cue to continue, watching the others.

"After that, you had stood up and noticed a large pack standing between us and escape. I don't know what you were thinking, but you just charged them, drawing your swords. It was a bloodbath, you were cutting them down as if they were just practice dummies. Then they had surrounded you and began attacking you again. I had tried to get their attention off of you, but it wasn't working. You had then slowly started killing them, one by one, until there were about five of them left. But one got a lucky hit in, knocking you to the ground." She stopped again and looked at the floor, recalling the feeling of just standing there, helpless, watching as they were trying to kill Iro. She continued in a cold voice, devoid of emotion.

"I had killed one, but the others just kept hitting you. They finally knocked away your sword, you had left your other one stuck in a Beowulf's chest, and you went berserk. You were yelling and suddenly, they stopped attacking you, two were on the ground, and you were standing again. You then killed them, not even bothering to pick up your weapons." Yang then looked at Iro again with that dead look in her eye.

"I had picked up your swords as you finished the last one off. I could see that you were still in the grip of your semblance, so I had approached slowly and cautiously, and offered you your swords. Which is when you attacked me, I don't know what set you off, you just did. So I defended myself, and I eventually knocked you out and carried you back."

Iro looked at the floor, noticing as the light reflected off the silver metal, looking at what appeared to almost be patterns in the light. He remembered. He remembered all of it. From opening and reading the letter, to fighting Yang and getting knocked out by that hook. Looking back at Yang, Iro responded, having not noticed the silence that had descended until he broke it.

"I remember Yang, I remember it all. That letter, it wasn't from my parents." Seeing Yang's confused look, he sighed. Then, taking a deep breath, looked at the floor again and continued; "It was a letter from the local Atlas Corp. Telling me that my house was attacked, and that my parents weren't found, there were a lot of bodies, and the house had exploded so they can't be for certain, but they believe my parents are dead. Hence the letter…"

Yang had figured it was something like that, knowing enough about Iro to know that he wasn't the kind to blatantly show emotion, but he had broken-down and had cried? Albeit away from the ship, but still… Yang just wanted to hug Iro, but felt that this was a bad time, so she just looked at the floor as well. Velvet was the first to break the silence;

"I am so sorry Iro, that is never a good thing to hear, but not even knowing if they really did die? That is just cruel, giving someone a little bit of hope wrapped in despair, there is nothing more _cruel_ than to hear that your parents could still be alive, even though unlikely, only for them to later tell you that nope, they are gone. I wish they had just told you they were dead, it would save you a lot of pain."

Iro just nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Yang was looking at Iro with open sympathy, knowing what it is like to lose someone close to you…

A few minutes later, the intercom went off;

"Welcome back to Vale everybody, we will be landing shortly. Don't forget to thank your pilot for the lovely flight."

Yang smirked at that statement, but that smirk died on her face when she glanced at Iro, still in pain and shrouded in sadness. After the shuttle landed, Iro stood, made to grab for his bag and swords, but was stopped by Coco and Yatsu, who also stopped Yang.

"Don't worry about the rest of the week, the forest is pretty much done now, we will get the rest tomorrow. You guys can go back to class." When Coco finished, she let Iro grab his weapons and watched as he and Yang left, heading back to signal academy.

The bus ride back to Signal was cloaked in nearly uncomfortable silence. As they were walking back towards the dorms, Yang is trying to come up with something to say to Iro, not an apology, yet not blaming him either. As she was about to say something, Iro said something first.

"Yang…" They stopped, and Yang looked at Iro. "Do you know one of the reasons I want to become a Huntsmen?" Iro paused, "I wanted to protect those that can't protect themselves. My parents told me about all the bloody details in this life of hunters, and one of the only things I pulled out of it, was that yes, there are a lot of Huntsmen and Huntresses, the job is to protect people, yes, but how many of them choose that to be a reason? I don't have many other reasons at the moment, but that is the reason that got me started. So hearing that I hurt someone else?" Yang tried to interrupt but Iro stopped her, "Or even _tried_ to hurt someone else, even if it was on accident, just hurts… and I don't want to experience that again. I don't want to hurt anyone else, bad guys I won't fret over as much, but I would still freak out eventually. But hurting someone else? Someone who is almost a friend? No, I don't want that…"

Iro just turned and walked back to his dorm, not even taking a glance behind him. Yang was just stumped, not knowing what to say, even if there _was_ anything to say. So she just watched Iro walk off, she then sighed and walked back to her own dorm, and turned in for the night, not even bothering to eat dinner, or that the sun was still up.

Iro walked back up to his dorm, hoping that Branco wasn't home, he didn't really need want to deal with anyone right now. Iro unlocked his dorm, and walked in, taking a quick look around. Not seeing anybody, Iro quickly walked to his room, carrying his bag and swords, after he walked into his room, he shut the door, locked it, then turned back to face his room. The bed off to the right had it's sheets still a little ruffled from Iro getting up this morning, with his bag sitting next to it on the floor. Iro looked to the left at his desk with weapon parts strewn across it, and remembered the couple other ideas for those parts. He figured he should start working on the second part of his weapon now, and later get the rest of his parts for the last of it.

So Iro sat down at the desk with his swords and began tearing them apart to install the upgrade. He was going to make it so the blades face each other, and then turn the hand-guards into what launches the projectile… Make it so if Iro inserts a crystal into the handle, the crystal will power it and give the sword it's abilities… Now he just needed to work on the catch and release system, how was he going to do that?... Oh, he could-

Iro's alarm started going off.

 _-come to a world of new solutions, welcome to a world of bloody evolution-_

Iro shut it off and looked at the time, it was a little after eleven, he shook his head, not believing he spent so much time working on his weapon. Iro got up, stretched, then dressed for bed and fell onto it, thinking of finishing his weapon tomorrow. And fell asleep, thoughts of the day swirling around his head as he fell asleep.

Iro was in weapons class, testing out his swords under the new upgrade, seeing if they still hold. He was in a sparring match with Yang, it was still a little awkward around her, but they made a silent agreement that what happened into forest wouldn't mess or do anything with their classes.

Yang was firing Amber Celica at Iro, who was blocking the shots with his sword while slowly walking closer. Someone had put a blocker on his sword, even with Yang's aura active, so that he wouldn't hurt her…too bad.

Iro smirked as he got closer, blocking her shots was almost too easy when he was dual-wielding. When Iro got close enough, he knocked her left arm out of the way with his wakizashi in his left hand, and brought his katana over his head and down, aiming for her head to knock her out.

Yang then raised her right arm to block Iro's strike with her gauntlet, but overshot it so that Iro's swords connected with her lower bicep, just above the elbow, and cut through the last of her aura…and then her arm.

Iro jumped back, confused for a moment, seeing Yang on the ground, bleeding out, and trying to figure out what happened. Iro glanced down at his sword, seeing a bit of blood just edging the shaped part of his blade, not quite passing the mark signifying the end of the blade's edge. Putting pieces together, Iro saw Yang's arm on the floor, and it finally clicked.

 _I cut Yang's arm off…. I hurt her, again._

Iro threw his swords to the ground, backing away. He felt all this emotion finally pounce on his weekend state, and he collapsed, tears streaming down his face as emotion after emotion passed through his head. It eventually settled on anger, and he got up, to see Taiyang and Ruby over by Yang, checking on her. They both turned to Iro, anger blazing in their eyes as well, but seeing their anger, Iro's dissipated, gone as fast as it arrived. Iro started backing up as Taiyang started stalking closer to him, and Ruby pull out her giant red scythe.

Iro wasn't going to fight back, he has already hurt enough people that he cares about. He lost his parents, now he just lost Yang, he wasn't going to fight his teacher and another friend. Iro just stood there as they approached. Ruby darting forward and slashing her scythe across Iro's stomach, Iro just flinched at the pain, but remained standing. Taiyang finally came forward, and planted his fist in Iro's gut, right where Ruby had just cut. Iro's breath was knocked out of him, and he bent over, hands on his knees. But then stood back up, lifting his arm to tell them to stop so he could explain. Taiyang grasped his arm though, his right one, and broke it, and not the normal break, he completely shattered it.

The pain in that dropped Iro to his knees, searing pain so hurtful that any normal man would cry out, but Iro's pain at losing a friend outmatched that pain.

 _Only fitting,_ The sarcastic part of Iro's mind mentioned, _you losing your right arm, just like how you took Yang's arm._

Taiyang then pulled Iro's head up, exposing his neck for Ruby to cut. But she had different ideas, and buried her scythe in his gut, and pulled the trigger, launching the scythe upward and effectively tearing him apart. His last thought to pass through his mind was; _I'm sorry Yang…_

Iro flung himself upwards, coming to a sitting position on his bed. His heart racing, Iro quickly noted he was in his room, and realized it was just a dream.

"Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream…." Iro mumbled to himself. "More like a nightmare…"

Iro flinched when his alarm went off;

 _"-can't just wait, with lives at stake, until they think we're ready-"_

Iro then got up and walked over to his weapon and finished building it, taking three hours to do so. Iro missed his first class, but if he dressed and left right now, he might make it in time for his history lesson. So Iro dressed and, strapping his wakizashi to his back, with the hilt sticking above his left shoulder, and his katana to his waist on his left as well. Iro walked out of the building, carrying his bags, and headed over to the school building for his class.

The day went decently, he took off his weapons and set them next to his bag at the edge of the room for each class, except weapons of course, but that was just a free-for-all training class because the substitute teacher had been fired and the original teacher has yet to show up. Iro then went to his private class with Taiyang earlier than usual, knowing Yang wouldn't be there yet, so that Iro could talk to him.

Walking into the room, he saw Taiyang on his scroll at the other end of the room. Iro felt a bit of apprehension at even being in the same room with Taiyang. A thought then occurred to Iro;

 _I haven't seen Yang all day, Ruby either…._

Iro heard the door shut as he was setting down his stuff. Taiyang must have heard it too, and when he turned around and saw Iro, his face became an unemotional, neutral mask. Iro walked over to Taiyang, not even bothering to hope that Mr. Xiao Long hadn't heard about what happened, and bowed. Expecting to get one of the worse beatings of his life, Iro just stood back up and watched Taiyang with a blank face as well, waiting for it to start.

Taiyang studied him a little longer, then asked the obvious question.

"What are you doing here Iro? Your class isn't for another hour and a half."

Iro looked at Taiyang then, apparently his hearing was off or he wasn't thinking properly, because Taiyang didn't ask the question Iro thought he was going to, or react the same way either…

"I am hoping to change my schedule to be different from Yang's. You know what happened, I am not going to pretend otherwise, but I would like to avoid any…uncomfortable situations, so I came here early in hopes to start my class now, and keep it separate from Yang's." Iro stated, just putting it out there, seeing if he would fake not knowing, or do something similar to that.

Taiyang nodded, like he was confirming something he already knew.

"Yeah, we can do that, but if you want it to be earlier, as in right now, you will be doing this with just me. I will train you, and you alone, you have to do what I say, when I say it, and you will train with and against me. Deal?" He then held out his hand, waiting to see if Iro would take the deal, even though he already knew Iro would. Iro shook his hand, sealing the deal.

"Alright then, let's go for a run, I hear you attacked my daughter…." With that, Taiyang led Iro on a run out of and around the school, several times, then around the whole school property, and then back to class. Taiyang had hardly broken a sweat, and he had Iro tell him everything about what happened. When they got back to the classroom, Iro nearly dropped from exhaustion, then Taiyang had him do a bunch of other physical stuff as punishment for what he did to Yang. They would start the actual training tomorrow The class finished a half hour later, totaling an hour and fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes before Yang would show up. As Iro made to leave, Taiyang stopped him, and, looking him in the eye, asked him;

"Iro, you told me what you did, everything, now I have some advice for you, and a question. Advice first, if you truly regret what you did, and don't want it to happen again, try and make it so it won't. I know, a little obvious right? That wasn't the question that was rhetorical. What I am saying is; make it so you know you won't hurt your friends and those you care about, how you do that is up to you, but I think that would be a good way to solve your problem. Now, the question. Did you apologize to Yang? You hadn't told me if you did, so another way to prove if you truly regret that, apologize for it."

Iro, after thinking over everything mentioned, nodded his thanks and quickly left the classroom after grabbing his bag and swords. Iro then made his way over to where the aura class was just ending. Walking up to Myriad, he bowed, noticing her slight intake of breath when she saw him. Iro then asked her;

"Professor Myriad, would you mind changing our schedule for our private class to be right after your school required one? There was an incident, and I would prefer to change my entire schedule, or at least most of it, if you'll let me…"

Myriad hesitated, just a moment, but long enough for Iro to notice, before she responded.

"Well, I guess we can do that. Please, take a seat and let us begin." Iro nodded and, after setting down his stuff, sat across from his teacher in the grass next to the sand pit.

They usually began a form of meditation, a trick that Myriad found that, if your Aura was unlocked, would give a subtle hint, sometimes not so subtle as like a really bright light, but other times it is usually just a faint outline.

Iro closed his eyes and began to meditate, mentally repeating the mantra that was taught in Mistral that has been known to work better than most others.

 _For it is in passing we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death._

Iro kept repeating it, again and again, usually until Myriad tells him that we then move on to other things, like-

"Iro, open your eyes." Iro did as she asked, and saw himself edged in a gray glow. Iro was looking at his hands, turning them this way and that, watching as the glow slowly faded. Iro looked back at Myriad and opened his mouth to ask, but she interrupted him.

"Yes, that was your aura. Now that you have unlocked it, we can start looking for your semblance. Usually it is a difficult if not long process, but at least we can start it now, instead of in a couple months." Iro nodded, understanding what she was saying, glad something was going right for a change.

"I-I think I may know, or at least can give you the area of similarities for my semblance."

Myriad arched one of her eyebrows, as if she didn't believe it was that easy.

"Well, let's start off easy and work our way there. I am going to ask you a couple questions, and I would like you to answer them to the best of your ability." Iro nodded his understanding.

"Favorite color?"

"Blue" Iro answered, not much thought needed for that one. It changes every couple years, but right now...

 _Wonder why she asked that?_

Myriad raised an eyebrow at his answer, but just shook her head slightly and continued on.

"What do strangers find cute about you?"

Iro arched an eyebrow, but answered honestly;

"Don't really know, I don't know many people, and none I know look at me _that_ way… so… yeah. My parents say my eyes are the more… startling... feature."

"Hmm…." Then she asked; "How about annoying? What do they find annoying about-"

"My personality…" Iro practically growled, cutting her off. Myriad raised her eyebrows at that and raised her hands slightly in an; _okay_ gesture.

"How about... What do you think of when you hear the words; mountain, forest, ocean, tundra, and desert, in that order."

Iro thought for a moment, thinking about what his response would be. "Do I have to give you a reason as to why I chose what I chose?" Myriad shook her head, and so he responded.

"Mountain? Strength, guardian, and unbreakable. Forest; Nature, wild, and hidden beauty. Ocean; Freedom, adaptability, dangerous when provoked. Tundra; Cold, hardy, survival. Desert; Lonely, desolate, and unforgiving.

"How would you react in a burning building? Would you run? Panic? What would you do?"

Iro almost didn't even have to think before he responded, he knew what he would do.

"I would save as many people as I can, even if it means I myself can't be saved. That would give all those people a chance to live their lives, many for the one? If it's mine, definitely, someone I care for, would be a bit harder, and I don't know for sure about that, but I would do what I can for others... Then I would panic and probably run if the fire couldn't be put out."

Myriad had a strange feeling that, that statement wasn't just about fire… but oh well, and moved onto one of the last questions she had for this.

Here Iro had to pause and think, then he glanced around looking for others, when not finding anyone, he sighed and looked at Myriad. He didn't just give her the cursory look-over that most people do when they first meet someone, Iro studied her. He noted the freckles that can barely be seen dotting her nose and part of her upper cheeks, saw the beginnings of smile lines on her face, the slight natural curve to the corner of her lips from her almost constant smile. He saw that she was subtly moving her left hand due to nerves, and at the edges of her figure, practically outlining her, was this…glow. A faint purple glow…

Myriad, who had been trying to stay silent as he studied her, was staring at Iro's face when she saw some fleeting emotions pass. Surprise, disbelief, and settling on confused. Iro had noticed others with a faint glow like this but, he had thought it just a trick of the light, random sunbeams catching and outlining them.

"What is it?" Myriad asked.

Iro was a bit slow in responding, finding it hard to describe to someone.

"I-Its-" He sighed, "You have this kind of purple glow…"

"Purple glow?" She asked, needing to make sure, she heard of a couple people with a semblance called empathy. Being able to judge someone's emotions and know if they are telling the truth based on their Aura and how it changes.

"Yeah, it's a faint purple, almost like periwinkle…." Myriad smiled. "What? What is it?" Iro asked, desperation edging his voice.

"I think we just found your semblance, or at least a part of it…" Iro was looking at her, confusion was written across his face.

"Part of it?" He asked, not sure if he wanted to learn her answer.

"Yes, that is not your entire semblance, probably just a passive ability. But for some, they have the ability called "Empathy", the ability to see if someone is lying, as well as know the person's emotions based on their Aura. We will work on it later, and that will be enough for the day. We will continue this tomorrow."

"Okay, bye Professor Myriad, have a nice night and see you tomorrow." Iro said as he picked up his stuff and left, waving behind him with his free hand.

Iro was walking to the market downtown, heading towards the 'Arme Shop' again for more parts. Iro had finished the upgrade on his swords but wanted to finish his other project, and for that he needed parts. Iro had been visiting the shop every other weekend, sometimes every weekend if he really needed a getaway place. Iro quickly made friends with the shop's owner, Mr. Rimsky Torchwick, and some of the other people who take care of the shop itself when he is not around or on break.

One of the ones he is on a sort-of middle ground with is Rimsky's nephew, Roman, a man with blazing orange-red hair tucked under a bowler's hat. He really likes his hat, and has quite a temper if someone insults his hat, even a slight joke towards it sets him off. Which he then usual just glares at the offender with those dull, almost gray, green eyes.

Luckily Roman wasn't in today, seemed almost no one was when Iro walked in. He knew they had this system that goes off when someone walks through the door, pings all over the building, he had asked this of course, so Iro just stood there, by the entryway, waiting for someone to show up.

After five minutes, Iro was fingering the hand-guard of his sword at his waist. Iro almost never went anywhere without his weapons, not anymore. It's one of those things that you should build up now, when it's safe to accidentally forget your weapon, then later when your life might depend on it.

When Iro still hadn't noticed anybody for another five minutes, Iro set his right hand on his sword hilt, getting into a ready stance, and then called out.

"Hello? Anybody home?"

Silence was all that returned.

Iro took a cautious half-step forward, further into the building. When nothing happened, Iro was just getting ready to call out again, when he heard the door behind him open. Iro quickly moved forward another foot before spinning in place and drawing his sword, stopping it just short of cutting the throat of none other than Mr. Rimsky himself.

After getting over his shock, of both the incredible speed Iro moved at, as well as nearly getting decapitated. He glowered at Iro and asked him;

"What are you doing here?" Iro backed up a little before re-sheathing his sword, and then answered as if nothing just happened.

"I came here to get some more parts, I got most of the other parts I needed from a shop a couple doors down, they had the metal that I needed, but I need some other parts that only you have."

Mr. Rimsky set down a bag that Iro hadn't noticed he was holding, then gestured towards the door behind him.

"No, how did you _get in_ here? Should have asked that first." He mumbled the second part under his breath.

Iro just tilted his head, almost like he was listening to something, and, wearing a questioning look, asked him;

"What do you mean? The door was unlocked."

A look of shock crossed Mr. Rimsky's face, "Unlocked?" He then turned and examined the door, nodding and quietly mumbling to himself. Turning back to Iro he nodded, then asked Iro;

"Alright, what can I get for you?" Iro thought for a moment, trying to recall everything, he then remembered sticking a list in his pocket. Pulling it out, Iro gave the short list to Mr. Rimsky, who raised his eyebrows after reading a couple of the items. Looking at Iro, he asked;

"Why do you need an electric capacitor and generator? Especially mini-versions?"

 _Heh, guess I forgot about those parts for the upgrade…_

Mr. Rimsky saw Iro cringe, just ever so slightly, but took that as a cue to not dig any further.

"Okay, I think we have all this here, let me go check." He then picked up his bag and went into one of the back rooms, soon coming back with a couple boxes and pulling out some of the components and items from Iro's list and placing them into a bag. When he was done, he set the boxes off to the side and totaled it all up on the register. Iro then paid him and exited the building, heading back towards his dorm room.

Getting back, Iro then spent the rest of the day, not even coming out for lunch and dinner, building and building, eventually finishing most of his new project. Pulling out his swords, he applied the electric capacitor and the generator to the swords, finishing his upgrade, and double checking it, not wanting to mistake it being finished again if it's not.

Iro then collapsed onto his bed, not even bothering to change out of his clothes, too tired to even really think. His last thought was;

 _I hope I don't get another nightmare..._

And of course, since he thought that, his mind decided to do just that and give him a nightmare.


End file.
